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)

ALMA Cycle 6 Pre-announcement

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The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) will start the next cycle of observing (Cycle 6) in October 2018. A Call for Proposals with detailed information on Cycle 6 will be issued in March 2018, with a deadline for proposal submission in April 2018. This pre-announcement highlights aspects of the Cycle 6 proposal call that are needed to plan proposals.

Details about the Cycle 6 Pre-announcenement can be found in the ALMA Science Portal.

Image credit: Carlos Padilla – AUI/NRAO

WVR scaling module is now available

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The software package to optimise the application of the WVR solutions for ALMA Observations from Maud et al. 2017 (A&A, 605, 121; arXiv) is now available to download.

You can find the package to download and further details in the following link.

Allegro hosted the EU ARC All-hands meeting

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During the last week of September the staff working in all the European ARC nodes had their yearly meeting in Den Dolder (NL) hosted by the Allegro node.

This yearly meeting brings together all the expertise in the network, in an unique occasion that allows us to share our experiences, strengthen our links and discuss pass, present and future developments.

We all are looking forward our next meeting organized by our colleagues at the Czech ARC node.

Picture Credit: A. Borkar

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.

ALMA Cycle 5 Proposal Review: Detailed Report

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A detailed report on the outcome of the ALMA Cycle 5 Proposal Review Process is now available. The report details the proposal review process, proposal statistics and regional distributions, as well as the proposal distribution across science categories and receiver bands.

The report can be downloaded as a pdf document from the Science Portal news item.

The highest priority Cycle 5 projects are listed at this link.

Status of ALMA Observations and Relocation to Long Baselines

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The ALMA Observatory has experienced back to back severe winter storms, making it difficult to recover the 12-m array for PI observations. This has had an even more detrimental impact on the relocation to the long baselines. Many roads are blocked with 2 meters of snow, high winds often return snow to the cleared locations, and snow is compacting into ice. We have returned to routine observations utilizing the 7-m and Total Power Arrays, and we are working hard to clear the remaining antennas to return to 12-m array PI science and reconfigure to the longest baselines. We will issue an update regarding the revised configuration schedule in the coming weeks

You can find this announcement at the ALMA Science Portal.

Image credit: EFE/Ariel Marinkovic.

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.