"Preparing for ALMA" Activity

Goal: Develop "recipes" for an array of science cases relevant for ALMA Early Science, as a guide to the community for thinking of proposing for and observing with ALMA< including:

• Can I do my science project (tools: ETC, simdata)
• Writing a proposal (OT-phase I)
• Observing with ALMA (OT-phase II)
• Reducing my ALMA data

Table of Contents

Important Dates

• Sept 28: material for Observatory Readiness Review submitted (including updated ALMA Primer)
• Oct 11-12: Observatory Readiness Review: SciOps
• Late October: OT "Public Preview" version release: TENTATIVE
• Early Nov?: NAASC walk-thru with OT

Background Material

• Canadian developed "ALMA Primer" (a must read document)
• ALMA "Design Science Reference Plan" (DSRP): DSRP (v2.2) (link to ESO site)
  • Subset of DSRP relevant to Early Science
• Early Science capabilities
• Full Science capabilities

Planning your Proposal (WILL UPDATE THIS FORMAT WHEN ALMA PRIMER IS UPDATED)

• Follow the lead given in the examples that start on pg. 23 of the "ALMA Primer"
• Items to include:
  • Science Goal
  • Receiver Band (which and why)
  • Angular Resolutions (FOV, resolution, LAS, any other scales like mosaic separation)
  • Spectral Resolution (most examples just mention one, but should consider how to use the entire available spectral window)
  • Sensitivity (channel and continuum)
  • Observing Time
  • Other (TP, ACA)
• Could draw examples from ALMA "Design Science Reference Plan" (link to ESO site - need to bring in-house)
• May be most useful to concentrate on projects suited for ALMA Early Science capabilities

Observing Tool, Phase-I

• Follow the workflow used in "Planning your proposals", but explain how these would be turned into science goals and entered into the OT-phaseI.
• ALMA Integrated Test 2: Your one-stop shopping page for using the OT. Instructions for downloading OT, links to user manual, guidelines for creating science goals, template library, etc.
• Final step is to generate Phase-I "Schedule Blocks" (SBs) from your proposal. To do this... TBC

Observing Tool, Phase-II

• You will start by opening your proposa and reviewing your phase-I SBs.
• More after we learn more about this.

CASA

• Startup:
  • Identify a linux machine on the NRAO network and make sure you have access to a data disk with at least 30 GB of free disk space. You do NOT want to attempt to do these tutorials in your polaris home area!!!
  • Do not use polaris, as it is the external NRAO email gateway. If you have to, you can use shadowfax (contact helpdesk-cvATnrao.edu and ask for write permission to /home/shadowfax/export/data_2/CASA_TESTING).
  • When this is done, open an xterm window and type "casapy-test" at the command line. I think you can just run normal casapy now. It is best to do this in the directory you want to work in.
  • After casa starts up, make sure the "casapy.log" window that opens says CASA Version 3.0.2 (r11477) Compiled on: Thu 2010/05/13 06:45:42 UTC OR later. If not, contact Darrell Scheibel (Room CV-354).
• After that, run through the three summer school tutorials:
  1. EVLA OSRO1 mode observation of the AGB star IRC+10216 in two ~36 GHz lines
     • http://casaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=EVLA_Spectral_Line_Calibration_IRC%2B10216
     • http://casaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=EVLA_Spectral_Line_Imaging_Analysis_IRC%2B10216
  2. EVLA OSRO1 mode continuum and polarimetry observation of Supernova Remnant 3C391. This is a small mosaic at C-band (4.6 and 7.5 GHz).
     • http://casaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=EVLA_Continuum_Tutorial_3C391
     • http://casaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=EVLA_Advanced_Topics_3C391
  3. CARMA mosaic tutorial
     • http://casaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=CARMA_spectral_line_mosaic_M99
• Other useful material
  • "Introduction to CASA" presentation: Presentation to Socorro NRAO staff for pre-tutorial training.
  • CASA Homepage Links to latest version of CASA, release notes, tutorials, cookbook, etc.
  • http://casa.nrao.edu/casatraining.shtml: casa training materials (tutorial lectures, script repository, demos)
  • http://casaguides.nrao.edu/: annotated scripts on casa reduction

Simdata

• First familiarize yourself with CASA by running through the CASA summer school tutorials above
• Next work through the simdata2 examples posted at Simdata Casaguides page, in particular:
  • Redshifted M51 simulated observation
  • Proto-planetary disk simulated observation
  • CO in an Edge=on spiral galaxy simulated observation
• Wiki for making ALMA Early Science simulations (including some relevant antenna configuration files)

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Additional Material:

-- JohnHibbard - 2010-05-17