User Test 6 (UT6) is now scheduled to start in Feb. This external test exercises: mosaics, continuum subtracted imaging, group gain calibrations, improved flagging, and improved imaging algorithms
NAASC testers: Official - Rachel, Crystal. Unofficial - John, Brenda, Kartik. JH: ask Ed Fomalont
ALMA related CASA tutorials are being planned in Taiwan for March and in Socorro in June (at Summer School)
ObsPrep (incl. ObsTool=OT) (Harvey & Kartik)
OT "Auto-Deployed" version. Can be used now to get experience with OT, but its a very unstable version and not always available
User test 7.0 released to testers on January 26, with feedback requested by Feb 16. This test will concentrate on Phase I and will use the archive in Santiago. Proposal that are submitted will be important for PT test in March. We have to get many people to take part, and coordinate feedback through Harvey. Planned testers: HL, ML, AW, Adam L., KS? (plus Baker, Johnstone from ASAC)
Beta release April 2010.
Technical Assessment WG (Harvey, Todd, Jeff, Crystal):
I think this effort may have completed? Replace this with Ph1M activities?
Casapy simulator (Remy)
Remy organized and hosted project-wide simulation workshop Jan 11-12 in CV. Meeting clarified and set priorities from user support perspective; discussion on work on web interface (EU), discussion of atmospheric corruption with Bojan, etc. Summary posted at https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/ALMA/Jan2010Wkshop
Eelco van Kampen is trying to amass a simulation library: proposed ALMA projects that will be used primarily to create simulated datasets to put into the archive for testing, but which we also want to use for OT tests, PT tests, and developing tutorials. We need people to contribute to this; Remy should collect what projects NA is working on. Tony R. will organize NRAO postdocs to contribute. Eelco's Website for this effort: http://almasimulations.pbworks.com/
Need to use OT to submit phase I proposals in Feb in order for test scheduled for March.
External test planned for April, after OT beta release.
EPO (J. Stoke)
Science User Outreach/Webpages (M. Adams/A.Evans)
Expect to get part-time support for science web very soon
Miami AAS meeting:
May 24-27 in Miami. NAASC attendees: CL, JH, AW, AR, ML, MA, AP. NRC?
Monday evening special session on Preparing for ALMA
Abstracts must be submitted by Feb 16
June Summer School:
NAASC effort being organized by AE. Planned activities:
Thursday: CB lecture on mm observing
Thursday evening: elective "Preparing for ALMA" and "Meet the NAASC" session
Friday: CASA tutorials. NAASC staff will support the EVLA high-frequency tutorial
Tuesday: elected sessions which will include another CASA tutorial including a CARAM
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: Crystal, Rachel (not Tues), Todd, Adam, John, Aaron, Brian, Remy, Mark L. To ask: AR? KS? DM?
NAASC Workshops (Aaron)
Next workshop will be something on high resolution spectral line observations
Tony and Al will be co-SOC chairs, along with someone from ANASAC
Upcoming Science Meetings: (Al)
A 'Science with ALMA Band 5' (163-211 GHz) workshop will take place in March in Rome.
NAASC items submitted to JAO for January Monthly report
Hiring activities
Conducted interviews for NAASC science positions, CASA developer, NA Archive technician
Posted advertisements for NAASC postdoc and administrative assistant
Arrangements to support a pre-doc student for 6 month term appointment to assist with observing project simulations
JAO support
NA CSV Liaison K. Sheth continued tours at OSF
Produced ALMA memo describing the most important frequencies in Band 6 for polarization work (SCID-90.00.00.00-019-A-REP) to inform the ongoing tests on Band 6 performance at NTC
Attended CIPT planning meeting in Socorro Jan 11-12
Attended FE M&R workshop meeting Jan 15
Attended and provided input to AOPvE meeting in Santiago Jan 18-21
Attended SciOpsIPT f2f in Santiago Jan 22
Participated in biweekly telcons for OT, Ph1M, PT, AOPvE, SciOpsIPT
Software Development & testing
Continued participation in CASA testing and cabal prioritizing meetings and support of CASA helpdesk
Led several meetings about HPC and the CASA viewer.
Wrote NRAO eNews article on CASA release 3.0
Worked on VLA and ATCA ammonia pathway through CASA
organized and hosted project-wide simulation workshop
Participated in discussion with ALMA Science Pipeline subsystem scientist to clarify and prioritize simulation requirements from pipeline group
Began OT test (H. Liszt, M. Lacy, K. Sheth, A. Leroy, T. Hunter)
Continued "on-the-fly" testing of the OT
Continued improvements to OT exposure time calculation
Re-cast the technical assessment forms and circulated for comment
Conducted gap analysis for Kayako helpdesk system against ALMA requirements; participated in ALMA Helpdesk requirements & planning meetings with helpdesk developer
Built SLAP (Simple Line Access Protocol) client in PHP for use in accessing Splatalogue (and other VO compliant spectral line databases) from CASA, and in IDL for more general use
Conferences and workshops
Attended January AAS meeting; presentation on ALMA and NAASC at NRAO Town Hall. Presented posters on ALMA Status, ALMA Science, CASA, Splatalogue and CASA at ALMA Special Session sponsored by NAASC. Produced and debuted Splatalogue "infomercial" (search for "splatalogue" on youtube), ALMA mousepad, and ALMA Primer (contributed by Canadian Partners from HIA)
Began planning the Fall 2010 NAASC science meeting with ANASAC: suggestion of `Long-wavelength spectroscopy in astrophysics', to tie in Herschel, ALMA, eVLA & GBT interests
Other
Refined draft of NSF proposal to fund NA share of ALMA Operations 2012-2015 and sent for review to NRAO and AUI management
Hosted visit by Bob Hanisch, VAO project lead, to discussed synergies between VAO and ALMA data mining at NRAO
Conducted ANASAC telecon Jan 15; they provided input on the suggested array reconfiguration rate reduction scenarios
Participated in US Astro2010 Decadal panels
Sabbatical visitor Sheila Kannappan (UNC) joined NAASC for 5 month visit