A series of pre-recorded presentations on the Cycle 8 capabilities, writing anonymous proposals, the use of the OT, and simulating ALMA observations found in this Allegro post or on our Youtube channel
IMPORTANT UPDATE: The ALMA Director, along with the regional partners, have decided to delay the proposal deadline for the ALMA Cycle 8 Call for Proposals to NO EARLIER than 15 UT on 19 May, 2020. Therefore, Allegro has decided to postpone the Proposal Preparation Workshop of March 26 to a later date, approximately 3 weeks before the actual deadline (when this is decided).
Everyone is encouraged to e-mail Allegro with any questions that they may have after watching these presentations. We will answer all questions, either by e-mail or via an online session, and also collect Frequently Asked Questions in a constantly updated document. For your convenience, we have also created a toolbox with useful links to help you prepare your proposal.
We would like to highlight the possibility to submit Large Programs on both the main array (>50 hours) and ACA stand-alone (>150 hours). PIs who are considering a Large Program are encouraged to contact Allegro early to optimize your program and explore the many ways we can support your project.
Please don’t hesitate to e-mail us if you have questions, concerns, or need support. We would be happy to set up a remote meeting with you via a video link or other remote means.
You can register for the Proposal Preparation Day at the following link.
PARTICIPANTS
Name
Institution
Michiel Hogerheijde
Leiden Observatory
Alvaro Hacar
Leiden Observatory
Andres Perez-Sanchez
Leiden Observatory
Aida Ahmadi
Leiden Observatory
Alex Hygate
Leiden Observatory
Lizette Guzman
Leiden Observatory
Christian Ginski
University of Amsterdam
Umit Kavak
SRON/Kapteyn Astronomical Institute
Sarah K Leslie
Leiden Observatory
Kimberly Emig
Leiden Observatory
Pooneh Nazari
Leiden Observatory
Marta Frias Castillo
Leiden Observatory
Leon Trapman
Leiden Observatory
Benoit Tabone
Leiden Observatory
Alice Booth
Leiden Observatory
Robin Mentel
Leiden Observatory
Jozsef Varga
Leiden Observatory
Katharina Immer
JIVE
Margot Leemker
Leiden Observatory
Anna Bartkiewicz
Nicolaus Copernicus University
Abigail Frost
KU Leuven
Daniel Harsono
ASIAA
Sofia Rojas
MPIA
Helga Denes
ASTRON
https://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/uhd_beletsky_alma_16.jpg8531280Allegrohttps://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/alma-allegro-750-1-300x99.jpgAllegro2020-03-16 08:00:002025-05-09 15:59:10ALMA Proposal Preparation Day (online material)
For Cycle 8, ALMA is adopting dual-anonymous review. This means that the proposers do not know who the reviewers are, and the reviewers don’t know who is on the proposing team. This has important consequences on how you write your proposal!
ALMA has put together a document with guidelines. Consequently, any text that can identify the proposing team is not allowed. Attempts to convey the identify proposing team in the text may lead to your proposal being disqualified.
Write your new proposal according to these guidelines, and rephrase the text of proposals that are re-submissions from previous cycles.
A presentation describing how to write an anonymous ALMA proposal can be found below (pdf file).
Allegro is organizing a proposal preparation workshop on Thursday March 26, where these requirements will be discussed together with other technical information about ALMA Cycle 8. You can register for the Proposal Preparation Day at the following link.
https://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/eso1137g.jpg27744241Allegrohttps://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/alma-allegro-750-1-300x99.jpgAllegro2020-02-17 16:38:332025-05-09 15:59:10Changes to how to write your ALMA proposal for Cycle 8
Allegro is hosting a QA2 training workshop for phased-ALMA data acquired during VLBI observations, which will be held in Leiden (the Netherlands), on February 24-28 2020. VLBI is an observing mode offered since Cycle 4, and the first observations were conducted in Apr 2017. The QA2 process for VLBI projects is significantly more complex than the procedure for standard projects, requiring a close loop between ARCs, JAO and VLBI correlators. The main goal of the workshop is to train ALMA astronomers so that the QA2 work load can be distributed across different regions. The training workshop will involve hands-on work on past cycles datasets. This workshop is restricted to the trained QA2 analysts in ALMA Regional Centers (ARCs).
Program
The workshop will be held in the 2nd floor of the Snellius Building, room TBD. We will meet on Monday at 09:00 for welcome and introductions and will start the program at 10:00 am. On the first day we will have introductory talks. On the second day we will have four sessions “QA2 script overview”. On the third and fourth days we will have hands-on sessions with test datasets. On the last day, we will work on documentation and discuss next steps. We count to start everyday at 9:00 and finish at 17:30. We look forward to seeing you! Follow this link to see the Programme.
HOTELSYou could consider staying either close to the Lorentz Center (about 2.5 km from the center), or near the railway (Leiden Centraal) station (where the center begins). There are regular buses from the Leiden Centraal station to the Lorentz Center (see the links below for more specific details if you will be coming by bus). In alternative, you can look into renting a bike for your stay. You can pick this up at the railway station, at the rear (exit towards the hospital). Bikes costs 7.50 euro per day or 37.50 for a week.Near the workshop venue:
-Directions to Leiden ObservatoryNote that this is not the old Observatory in the center of Leiden.There are regular buses from the Leiden Centraal station, buses 43 (direction Den Haag) or bus 57 (direction Nieuw Vennep). These take around 7 minutes. Please see the link below for more specific details if you will be coming by bus.
The venue of the workshop is the Snellius building of the Lorentz Center. The Leiden Observatory and Allegro offices are located on the 4-5th and 11th floor, respectively, of The Huygens building (in front and to the right with respect to the Snellius building).
-Directions inside the building:
Room TBD on the 2nd floor of the Snellius building: At the entrance of the building there is a reception were they can provide you with directions.
https://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/alma_color-CC.jpg11974000Allegrohttps://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/alma-allegro-750-1-300x99.jpgAllegro2020-01-16 12:41:042025-05-09 15:59:10ALMA-VLBI QA2 Workshop– Leiden Lorentz Center, 24-28 February 2020
We would like to bring to your attention the special session ‘Eight years of ALMA ground-breaking results: A joint venture between the ALMA user community and the ALMA Regional Centres‘ that is organised as part of the yearly meeting of the European Astronomical Society. The conference will take place in Leiden, The Netherlands, on June 29 – July 3, 2020. The Special Session No. 13 will be held on the last day of the conference (July 3rd).
The Special Session SS13 will focus on scientific results that emphasise the connection between the ALMA users and the EU ARC network, and include:
Scientific highlights from large programs.
Scientific results from special modes with EU-specific strengths:
high frequencies, polarization, solar observations, deep fields, data combination.
Results based on archival research and data mining.
Community and EU ARC network software/tools development.
Optimization of observations setup and data calibration.
Computing facilities for data reduction and analysis.
For more information on the SS13, please visit this link.
For general information on the EAS 2020, please click here.
Abstract submission is open for the SS13 in a form of oral or poster presentations. In order to submit your abstract, please visit the Abstract portal:
Sincerely,
The EAS2020 SS13 SOC.
https://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/EAS2020_image_v2-e1578322089661.png563750Allegrohttps://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/alma-allegro-750-1-300x99.jpgAllegro2020-01-06 15:54:342025-05-09 15:59:10EAS2020 – Special Session Nr. 13: Eight years of ALMA ground-breaking results.
Allegro is organizing an ALMA Science Day on Friday November 22, 2019, at Leiden Observatory.
Allegro organizes this meeting for the Netherlands ALMA community to share their exciting new science, hear the latest news from the telescope, and discuss user experiences and ALMA-related topics.
The third edition of the Netherlands ALMA Science day will be held in the 2nd floor of the Huygens Building (HL), room HL-226. We will start the program at 11:30 am with lunch. All the registered participants are invited to join us. We will offer sandwiches and fruits for the registered participants. Then, the science talks will start at 12:30. The first afternoon block of talks will finish with the presentation by this year’s invited speaker Dr. M. Zwaan (ESO). Our program is full of exciting topics including results from high-redshift studies, as well as studies of dust and molecular gas in proto-planetary disks. During the second block of talks, we will have a presentation by Dr. C. Goddi (Allegro) on the results of the Event Horizon Telescope!
We will finish the day with a Borrel at the 11th floor, next to the Allegro offices. We look forward to seeing you!
University of Science and Technology of China & Leiden Observatory
Andrew Barr
Leiden Observatory
Matthew Kenworthy
Leiden Observatory
Alexandru-Daniel Taun
University of Groningen
Vincent Icke
Leiden University
Violeta Gámez Rosas
Leiden University
Pengyu Liu
Leiden University
MARIANNA PATATOUKOU
Leiden University
Martijn van Gelder
Leiden Observatory
Micha Heilman
Leiden University
Pooneh Nazari
Leiden University
DIRECTIONS-Directions to Leiden Observatory
Note that this is not the old Observatory in the center of Leiden.
There are regular buses from the Leiden Centraal station, buses 43 (direction Den Haag) or bus 57 (direction Nieuw Vennep). These take around 7 minutes. Please see the link below for more specific details if you will be coming by bus.
Note these specify the route to the Lorentz Center, which is in the forward leaning building in the photo. The event will be held in the joining taller building – The Huygens building. Leiden Observatory and Allegro offices are located on the 4-5th and 11th floor of that same building, respectively.
-Directions inside the building:
HL-226 on the 2nd floor of the Huygens building:
At the entrance of the building there is a reception were they can provide you with directions.
The afternoon session will be held on the 2nd floor of the Huygens Building (HL), room HL-226.
The borrel will be held on the 11th floor of the Huygens Building (HL), next to the Allegro offices (HL-11.22).
https://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/alma_color-CC.jpg11974000Allegrohttps://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/alma-allegro-750-1-300x99.jpgAllegro2019-09-17 14:27:132025-05-09 15:59:10Netherlands ALMA Science Day — 22 November 2019.
The Cycle 7 Supplemental Call for Proposals is anticipated to open at 15:00 UT on September 3 with a proposal deadline of 15:00 UT on October 1. ALMA expects to allocate approximately 2500 h of observing time on the ACA in the Supplemental Call.
Preliminary information is currently available here.
Complete details of the Supplemental Call will be posted on the ALMA Science Portal on September 3.
https://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/VOORBEELD4.jpg499750Allegrohttps://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/alma-allegro-750-1-300x99.jpgAllegro2019-08-20 09:00:502025-05-09 15:59:10ACA Supplemental Call for Proposals Pre-announcement
The Lorentz Center will be hosting the meeting:
Improving Image Fidelity on Astronomical Data: Radio Interferometer and Single-Dish Data Combination
from the 12th to the 16th of August, 2019.
Please find all the information needed on this link.
https://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Screenshot-2019-06-03-at-16.44.20.png481864Allegrohttps://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/alma-allegro-750-1-300x99.jpgAllegro2019-06-03 15:46:242025-05-09 15:59:10Improving Image Fidelity on Astronomical Data: Radio Interferometer and Single-Dish Data Combination
Including the powerful ALMA into an array of telescopes for the first time, astronomers have found that the emission from the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) at the center of our Galaxy comes from a smaller region than previously thought. This may indicate that a radio jet from Sgr A* is pointed almost toward us. Please find more information on the Press Release.
https://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Screenshot-2019-01-22-at-12.24.41.png534586Allegrohttps://www.alma-allegro.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/alma-allegro-750-1-300x99.jpgAllegro2019-01-22 12:28:002025-05-09 15:59:10The black hole at the heart of our Galaxy
Over the course of the last several months an issue in CASA mosaic imaging was recognized. The Observatory elected to understand and characterize the issue before informing the user community of potential impacts on the resulting images. The CASA team has now identified a couple of issues using both the 7-m and 12-m arrays over the course of the past few cycles and CASA releases. The full extent of the data affected is still being investigated.
