The future of ALMA support at the 42nd ESO Users Committee

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The ESO Users Committee (UC) annual meeting will take in Garching on 26-27 April, 2018. Each year the UC meeting has one session dedicated to a special topic. In 2018 this special topic is the future of ALMA User Support.

Therefore, the feedback from EU ALMA users would be particularly important. The UC has prepared a poll to receive the feedback from the community at the following link:
https://www.eso.org/extra/surveys/index.php?sid=34365

The poll will be active until **March 26th, 2018**.

The UC also welcomes input through the national contacts. You can find more details in the following announcement:
https://www.eso.org/sci/publications/announcements/sciann17100.html

ALMA Cycle 6 Call for Proposals in now open

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The ALMA Director, on behalf of the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) and the partner organizations in East Asia, Europe, and North America, is pleased to announce the ALMA Cycle 6 Call for Proposals. It is anticipated that 4000 hours of the 12-m Array time and 3000 hours of the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) time, also known as the Morita Array, will be available for successful proposals from Principal Investigators (PIs) in Cycle 6.

ALMA Cycle 6 proposal submission will open at
15:00 UT on Tuesday, 20 March 2018

The Cycle 6 proposal submission deadline is
15:00 UT on Thursday, 19 April 2018

You can find the Call for Proposals at:
https://almascience.eso.org/proposing/call-for-proposals.

In the following link you can also find a poster prepared by the EPO department at JAO with a summary of the new capabilities offered in Cycle 6:
ALMA_Cycle6_Capabilities_Poster

New Science Verification data available: High-resolution observations of HL Tau in Band 4

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New Science Verification data are now listed on the Science Verification data page (source no. 15 on the list: HL Tau).

The observations are:

HL Tau high-angular resolution (~50 mas) observations in Band 4 (continuum-mode) with the 12-m Array
The raw data, calibrated data, reference images and reduction scripts are available for download here.

The original announcement can be found in the ALMA Science Portal.

Image: ALMA image of the young star HL Tau and its protoplanetary disk. This best image ever of planet formation reveals multiple rings and gaps that herald the presence of emerging planets as they sweep their orbits clear of dust and gas. Credit: ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ); C. Brogan, B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Powerful New Hardware Approved for ALMA

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The development of a new spectrometer for the Morita Array, which forms part of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), has been approved by the ALMA Board. Developed by Japan, the Morita Array is composed of twelve 7-metre antennas and four 12-metre antennas.

You can read the full text of the announcement in the EU ARC Announcements

Image credit: Denisse Lira – ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Updated ALMA Configuration Schedule for Cycle 5

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The anticipated configuration schedule for Cycle 5 is available at the following link. The schedule was modified from that posted in the Cycle 5 Proposer’s Guide. The changes were made to optimize the schedule in response to the proposal pressure from the top-rated proposals in Cycle 5 and the adverse weather at the ALMA site that affected the configuration schedule at the end of Cycle 4. The most significant change is that Cycle 5 will begin in configuration C43-10 instead of C43-7, and then move to more compact configurations.

You can find this announcement at the ALMA Science Portal.

Cycle 5 Phase 2 deadline

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The Cycle 5 Phase 2 deadline by which approved projects need to be submitted to the archive is anticipated to be Sept 7th 2017.

Users can delegate the submission of the Phase 2 material in case of unavailability. They can do so by selecting a delegee (for each project) in their user profile.

Guidelines to PIs will be made public in July.

You can find this announcement in the ALMA Science Portal.

Supplemental Call for Proposals to use the 7-m Array in Cycle 4

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The ALMA Director announces that the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) will accept observing proposals that request to use the 7-m Array in the remainder of Cycle 4, which ends on September 30, 2017. This proposal call enables the community to propose projects that will fill in undersubscribed regions of the observing queue for the 7-m Array. Up to 800 hours on the 7-m Array will be allocated through this opportunity.

For more details on this supplemental call please visit the ALMA Science Portal.

Special Session SS20 at EWASS – Prague, 26 – 30 June 2017

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The European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) Special Session No. 20, held on the first day (26 June) of the conference, will be devoted to the three particular modes of observing with ALMA that demonstrate the unique capabilities of the facility: High-Frequency Observations (specifically in Bands 8, 9 and 10); High-Angular-Resolution Observations with baslines up to 16 km; Solar Observations. Further details on the S220 site.

ALMA Cycle 5 Pre-announcement

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The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) will start the next cycle of observing (Cycle 5) in October 2017. A Call for Proposals with detailed information on Cycle 5 will be issued in March 2017, with a deadline for proposal submission in April 2017. This pre-announcement highlights aspects of the Cycle 5 proposal call that are needed to plan proposals.

Details about the Cycle 5 Pre-announcenement can be found in the ALMA Science Portal.

ALMA Cycle 1 & 2 Summary Report

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A detailed report on ALMA Cycles 1 & 2 is now available. The report details observing and completion statistics, data reduction and delivery, and publication statistics.

The document is available as PDF and can be downloaded via the ALMA Science Portal.