NAASC Minutes for April 07, 2010 Meeting


Three ALMA antennas on the ACA pads.
ALMA antennas now sit on N601, J504 and J505. See typical long u,v track and beam below.

These minutes are available at https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/NaascMinutes2010Apr07

Information for meeting:

  • Call date: Wednesday, April 07, 2010
  • Call time 13:30 ET or 17:30 UT
  • Duration: NEW! 1.0 hr
  • Locations: CV-ER230/TUC-N525/Soc280(SO-conf2)/JAO-Alsacia/JAO-OSF(Science)/NRC
  • Connection for Video:
    • From NRAO select "CV-ER230"
    • hub ip=192.33.117.16
    • alternative ip for Chile only, if above drops: 192.33.117.17
  • Non toll-free number: 434-244-6834
  • USA toll-free Number: 866-675-5385
  • Outside USA Number: +1 517-444-6916
  • Passcode: 8445333#
  • Leader: Hibbard

Attendees

  • CV: LClark, KSheth, DCKim, JMangum, RIndebetouw, AWootten, RFriesen, BKent, MLacy, JHibbard, MAadams, KSharp, MHatz, AEvans
  • Soc:
  • GB:
  • Canada: GSchieven
  • Tuc: DEmerson
  • JAO: APeck, ARemijan
  • Other:

Action Items from past meetings (RED=OPEN)

  • ACTION: Post FAQ for new hires
    • WHO: New Admin with input from Kartik, Mark L., Aaron, other recent hires
    • DUE: Jan 1, 2010 -> June
    • DONE:
  • ACTION: Develop & deploy staff pages for the NAASC (http://science.nrao.edu/alma/ALMApeople/naascstaff.shtml)
    • WHO: Shanika/Aaron -> D.C. Kim
    • DUE: preliminary page ready Nov13; new scope: include non-CV sites?
    • DONE:
    • NOTES: Carol needs to decide how to incorporate all the different sites & advise Aaron (CV/Soc/Tuc/NRC/Chile)
  • ACTION: Post Simdata walkthrough and 6 recipes
    • WHO: Remy -> D-C. Kim
    • DUE: Jan03 -> May 21
    • DONE:
  • ACTION: Transfer tickets from old CASA helpdesk to kayako instance
    • WHO: CB: identify tickets to transfer. K.Sharp: transfer tickets
    • DUE: ?
    • DONE:
  • ACTION: Post abstracts for Miami AAS special session and advertise
    • WHO: D.-C. Kim/AEvans & CL?
    • DUE: Soon!
    • DONE:

Action Items from this meeting:

  • ACTION: Send availability during upcoming Integrated Test (May 10-June 4) to JHibbard
    • WHO: All NAASC staff
    • DUE: April 17 (before SciOpsIPT f2f
    • DONE: April 17

Agenda

  • Project News (APeck/RHills or CSV Liaisons)
    • AIV Status
    • ALMA Biweekly Calendar
    • AP reports: Board & MIPT meetings currently taking place. More power issues at OSF. SB generation from OT going well; completed observations of Orion & lensed galaxy.

  • NAASC News (Hibbard/Lonsdale)
    • We have contracted with Dong-Chan Kim (UVa) to provide half-time support for NAASC Science Web. Dong-Chan will be based in room 220. Will also help with mediawiki content (especially simdata tutorials).
    • Next NA CSV turnos: AR April 4-24. HL April 18-May 15
    • Crystal and Todd will be away doing EVLA RSRO April 20-June30
    • Carol on vacation until April 13
    • Mike Hatz has joined NRAO as ARC Mirror Archive Technician. Installing first Archive racks downstairs.
    • Next NAASC postdocs have all accepted:
      • Robin Pulliam (UAz) will start in June
      • Amy Kimball (UWash) will start in Sept
      • Nuria Marcelino (Laboratory for Molecular Astrophysics, Madrid) to start Nov
      • Kartik has a postdoc starting in the Fall to work on S4G: Carlos Munos
    • NAASC plan submitted to NSF on March 31. Posted to Basecamp. Thanks to all for your invaluable contributions!
    • John is traveling to Japan April 18-23 for SciOpsIPT f2f meeting; K.Sharp will join to give Kayako helpdesk demo. Major topics: integrated test this summer; documentation; ops readiness review
    • News from other ARCs:
      • EU ARC: Felix Stoehr joins as ARC Scientist in Sept. New ARC Scientist position advertised w/deadline April 18. A. Biggs about to start 6mo CSV support tour. Organizing ALMA-Herschel meeting in Garching for Nov 2010.
      • EA ARC: Kengo Tachihara & Kazuya Saigo join as ARC scientists (were postdocs). Final stages of hiring CSV liaison.

  • NRC News (Schieven)
    • Victoria will host Jan workshop (after Seattle AAS)
    • Any of Gerald, James, Doug are available to be on SOC

  • ANASAC (AWootten)
    • Last telecon: March 5 Agenda
    • Next telecon: May 21
    • Report to Board this week

  • Main Event:
    • The Calm before the Storm NOTE: SOME OF THIS INFO WAS UPDATED AT THE SCIOPS IPT F2F MEETING; UPDATED TIMELINE POSTED TO MAIN NAASC WIKI UNDER ALMALookingAhead
      • April: OT beta release
      • May: JAO integrated test:
        • May 10-21: OT-phI test
        • Week of May 24: Load test
        • May 31-June 4: Ph1M, PT and OT-phII tests
        • May 31: Proposal distribution; TA, PA, SA reports entered
        • June 1: ARP meetings
        • June 2: APRC/DC meeting, create LTS
        • June 3-4: generate SBs for a few projects, create LTQ, change status of SBs etc
        • Expect helpdesk to be used through all phases
        • June 14: individual test reports due
        • June 21: final merged reports ready
      • May 24-27, Miami: Miami AAS including "Preparing for ALMA" session
      • June 8-15, Socorro: NRAO Summer School, including "Preparing for ALMA" session, CASA and simdata tutorials, splatalogue and OT demos
      • July 13-18 OSF/Santiago: NSF review of NAASC proposal in Chile
      • August: "Train the Trainer" sessions for OT, Proposal Handling Team/Ph1M, helpdesk
      • September: material submitted for Science Operations Readiness Review. This includes end-user documentation
      • Fall 2010: JAO "Readiness Reviews (Santiago):
        • October 7-8: CSV Status Update
        • October 11-12: SciOps Readiness Review
        • October 18-21: AAER
        • November 8: DTS/Site Readiness Review
        • November 10: Observatory Readiness Review
      • Fall/Winter 2010: widespread "Observing with ALMA" talks by roving NAASC staff
      • Jan 9-13 2011: Seattle AAS (OT training at NRAO booth?)
      • Jan 15-17 2011: NAASC Workshop in Victoria. OT & CASA tutorials

  • Reports from Cognizant Leads
    • Pipeline (Remy)
      • User Test 6 (UT6) is now scheduled to start May 14-June 21 This external test exercises: mosaics, continuum subtracted imaging, group gain calibrations, improved flagging, and improved imaging algorithms
      • NAASC testers: Official - Remy, Rachel. Unofficial - John, Brenda, Kartik.
    • CASA (Crystal)
      • Public release (R3.0) is out. Testing patch 3.0.1 for EVLA.
      • ALMA related CASA tutorials took place in Feb in Taiwan and Manchester Mar31-Apr 1. Schedule in Socorro in June (at Summer School)
      • Using new nrao helpdesk. NEED KELLY TO HELP TRANSFER SOME RELEVANT TICKETS FROM OLD HELPDESK?
    • ObsPrep (incl. ObsTool=OT) (Harvey)
      • Beta release April 2010.
    • Phase I Manager (Ph1M) (Harvey):
      • Telecon this morning
    • Casapy simulator (Remy)
    • ALMA Archive (Mark L)
      • Kelly Sharp is approaching proposed solution for joint ALMA/NRAO Helpdesk solution in kayako
      • Group traveled to Garching March 14-21 to see ESO archive and attend plone tutorial
    • Splatalogue (Tony)
    • NEW TASK: Project Tracker (PT)
    • EPO (J. Stoke)
      • On Wed, March 31st, JS, AR and Brooks Pate had a dinner meeting with Chris Hoelzl, VP of programming at the Smithsonian networks. The topic was to make a pilot program (~90mins) on ALMA for Smithsonian network television. This program is intended to capture and highlight the construction and science of ALMA. It may also be expanded in to a series if the pilot goes well. We received the following email from Chris on 4/1...
        • "I came away thinking that we should be putting together a plan to create not just a documentary but something bigger that can link to all the various ways the public might experience the ALMA project and the science and data that will result. I very much want Smithsonian Channel to be a part of this and I’d be happy to meet with you again with or without NSF. I briefed my boss, David Royle, on our dinner and he’s providing me the support I need to move this forward. We’d be happy to walk you through the way we are structuring the Titanoboa initiative and bring in other SI partners, including the Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Books, SITES, etc."
    • Science User Outreach/Webpages (M. Adams/A.Evans)
      • Dong-Chan Kim will provide part-time support for science web starting immediately
      • Miami AAS meeting:
        • May 24-27 in Miami. NAASC attendees: CL, JH, AW, AR, [HL?], MA, AP, Kelsey
        • Monday evening special session on Preparing for ALMA:
          • Carol: welcome
          • Al: science
          • Kelsey: Users view
          • Alison: status
          • Tony: tools
        • We need to collect abstracts and post (see AI). Need to promote
      • June Summer School June 8-15 in Socorro. NAASC effort being organized by AE. Planned activities (see also "Supplemental Material"):
        • Thursday (6/10): CB lecture on mm observing
        • Thursday evening (6/10): elective "Preparing for ALMA" and "Meet the NAASC" session
        • Friday (6/11): CASA tutorials. NAASC staff will support the EVLA high-frequency tutorial
        • Tuesday (6/15): elected sessions which will include another CASA tutorial including a CARMA mosaic example and simdata
        • Rachel & Crystal will prepare ALMA relevant CASA tutorials. Remy will prepare simdata tutorial. NAASC staff must train up on these before so they can support.
        • NAASC attendees: Al, Crystal, Rachel, Todd, Adam, John, Aaron, Brian, Remy, Mark L., Tony, Kartik, Al
    • NAASC Workshops (Aaron)
      • Next workshop will be ALMA: Extending the Limits of Astrophysical Spectroscopy
      • Will be held in Victoria after Jan AAS in Seattle
      • Tony and Al will be co-SOC chairs, along with someone from ANASAC and people from NRC
    • Upcoming Science Meetings: (Al)
      • A 'Science with ALMA Band 5' (163-211 GHz) workshop will take place May 24-25 in Rome.
      • Other Meetings are listed on the google ALMA Science Meetings calendar
    • Upcoming NAASC Science Visitors (see google calendar NAASC Visitors)

Additional Supporting Material

NAASC items submitted to JAO for March 2010 Monthly report

Hiring activities
  • Offers made for NAASC science positions and administrative assistant
  • 2 NAASC postdocs hired, Amy Kimball (UWash) and Nuria Marcelino (Laboratory for Molecular Astrophysics, Madrid), who will start in the fall.
  • Second NAASC Archive Tech position filled

JAO support
  • NA CSV Liaison K. Sheth finished 4 month tour at OSF. A. Wootten continues support of CSV as part of Science IPT
  • Created a CSV-JIRA excel sheet for CSV leads to use for tracking and planning CSV activities
  • Participating in CSV groups for phase stability, sun-moon scans, astro-holography, and correlator mode verification
  • Participated in work on DV03 surface readjustment and DV07 antenna positioning performance
  • Assisted SciOpsIPT in evaluating observing impact of different array configurations
  • Analyzed receiver beam patterns on the next front end to be shipped to OSF
  • Investigated methods to optimize the ALMA correlator quantization correction software
  • C. Brogan & A. Wootten participated in ASAC meeting. C. Brogan gave CASA presentation
  • Contributed to JAO "newcomers" documentation
  • Contributed to JAO earthquake "lessons learned" documentation

Software Development & testing
  • Participated in PT UT1.0 test
  • Worked on integrating CASA with splatalogue
  • Worked on import of ATCA spectral line data into CASA
  • Traveled to ESO for Plone training (for ALMA User Portal applications), and to discuss archive issues including mirroring and VO effots.
  • Continued adding new CASAguides tutorials (http://casaguides.nrao.edu) and an "instructions to authors"
  • Continued testing OT sensitivity calculator
  • Supported CASA helpdesk

Conferences and workshops
  • Involved in planning for NRAO Synthesis Imaging Workshop (June 8-15 2010)
  • A. Wootten & S. Corder attended Star Formation Workshop at U. de Chile.
  • R. Friesen gave science presentation at Carnegie Institution of Science, including ALMA update
  • A. Remijan gave a lecture on splatalogue and GBTIDL in GB

Other
  • First 4 NGAS nodes for NA Mirror Archive ordered and shipped for installation in NAASC; refurbishing offices for Archive support personnel; completed work on cooling upgrade for archive room
  • Final preparations of NAASC funding proposal to NSF
  • Wrote article for NRAO eNews

Email from A. Evans about NAASC Participation in June 2010 Summer School (emailed to naasc-cv on April 6 2010)

Hi,

As John mentioned at the group meeting last week, the 12th Synthesis Imaging Workshop is June 8-15 (http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/events/synthesis/2010/). The NAASC is planning on participating in activities on June 10, 11 and 15.

  • Thursday, June 10th - in the evening (6:30-8:30pm), we will have a "Preparing for ALMA" reception. This event will consist of light refreshments (no alcohol) and ~ 3-4 presentations (less is probably better). This event is being modeled after the "Preparing for ALMA" session at the 2010 May AAS meeting in Miami. A tentative list of talks is -
    • "Welcome to the NAASC" - Lonsdale or Hibbard
    • "ALMA Science and Timescale" - Wootten
    • "ALMA from a User's Perspective" - Evans
    • "ALMA Tools" - Remijan or Lacy ->Remijan
  • Friday, June 11th - CASA tutorials with EVLA and VLBA data
  • Tuesday, June 15th - CASA mosaicing and SIMDATA tutorials, plus OT (Sheth) and Splatalogue (Remijan) walk-throughs.

The locations of the Thursday evening reception and the Tuesday walk-throughs are still being discussed.

So far, the following people have said they are available for the Summer School - Evans, Remijan, Sheth, Friesen, Hunter, Leroy, Hibbard, Kent, Indebetouw, Lacy ->and Al

A couple of other issues -
  1. Registration - if you're not participating in the VLA tour - DO NOT Register. (Limit 150 registrations due to number of tutorials available and VLA tour limitations.)
  2. Hotel rooms need to be made by individuals. Hotel information can be found under Accommodations at http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/events/synthesis/2010/

- Aaron and Laurie

NAASC "User Outreach Before Early Science" items submitted to Science Implementation Review panel

User outreach/training plans prior to Early Science, from NA:
  • Our Canadian colleagues at HIA have developed an ALMA Primer, which they will continue to develop, with input from NAASC staff. The primer is available at http://www.almatelescope.ca/Workshop/ALMAPrimer.pdf
  • The NAASC has been steadily adding to the content on the CASAguides mediawiki site at http://casaguides.nrao.edu/. EVLA staff will soon start contributing material.
  • May 24-27 2010, 216th Meeting of AAS, Miami Florida: NAASC has organized a Special Session, "Preparing for ALMA", at the 216th American Astronomical Society Meeting (http://science.nrao.edu/events/preparingforalma.shtml). NAASC will also staff NRAO booth to discuss ALMA and hand out "ALMA Primers" and mousepads and provide demonstrations of CASA simdata and the Splatalogue molecular spectral line database interface. If appropriate, we will also provide demonstrations of the ALMA Observing Tool.
  • June 8-15 2010, NRAO Synthesis Imaging Workshop, Socorro NM: NAASC staff will sponsor a "Preparing for ALMA" evening session, run CASA tutorials, CASA simdata tutorials, and present walkthroughs of the ALMA Observing Tool and Splatalogue molecular spectral line database interface. Other details of the workshop are available at http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/events/synthesis/2010/
  • Jan 9-13 2011, 217th Meeting of AAS, Seattle Washington: NAASC will staff NRAO booth to discuss ALMA and hand out "ALMA Primers", information on the Call for Proposal and ALMA Early Science Capabilities, books of ALMA observing/data reduction "recipes" and provide demonstrations of the ALMA Observe Tool, CASA simdata, and Splatalogue.
  • Jan 14-15? 2011, 5th NAASC Science Workshop held in concert with our Canadian colleagues at HIA in Victoria, BC, which will feature ALMA Observing Tool tutorials.
  • After SV data become available, we will incorporate these datasets into OT and CASA tutorials and recipes.
  • By the Operations Readiness Review (October 2010), the NAASC will develop some prototypes of on-line versions of training materials for the OT and GUI-focused ALMA tools (e.g. CASA viewer, Splatalogue).
  • Shortly after the Operations Readiness Review and before the first Call for Proposals, the NAASC staff will make visits to various institutions to give "Observing with ALMA" talks concentrating on proposal preparation and submission, and leave copies of the ALMA primer and ALMA observing/data reduction "recipes".

ALMA U,V Tracks posted by Al

  • Six hour u,v tracks and beam with the array as currently configured.:
    MarsBeamCfg3long.jpg

  • Original configuration plan- six hour u,v track and beam.:
    MarsBeamCfg3along.jpg

-- JohnHibbard - 2010-05-04
Topic attachments
I Attachment Action Size Date Who Comment
MarsBeamCfg3along.jpgjpg MarsBeamCfg3along.jpg manage 24 K 2010-04-06 - 23:24 AlWootten Original configuration plan- six hour u,v track and beam.
MarsBeamCfg3long.jpgjpg MarsBeamCfg3long.jpg manage 25 K 2010-04-06 - 23:22 AlWootten Six hour u,v tracks and beam with the array as currently configured.
_1467.jpgjpg _1467.jpg manage 1 MB 2010-04-06 - 23:13 AlWootten Three antennas on the ALMA Compact Array pads
Topic revision: r3 - 2011-01-05, JohnHibbard
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