ALMA Information for New and Experienced Users:

1. •ALMA Science Portal  The ALMA Science Portal is your gateway to access information, documents, software and tools for ALMA.
   

2. •Observing with ALMA - A Primer for Early Science  A 42-page document (pdf – 8.5MB) produced by NRC-HIA and NRAO with input from ALMA scientists around the world, containing an introduction to ALMA and Early Science capabilities, useful information about ALMA, and sample science cases which could be done during Early Science including observing parameters needed to carry out the sample projects. A must-read for both those who are new or experienced at interferometry.  A new version for Early Science Cycle 1 will be released late December 2011.  The call for proposals for Cycle 1 is expected February 1, 2012
   

3. •ALMA-users  Canadian astronomers interested in ALMA may wish to join the “ALMA-users” email exploder.  Click on the link to subscribe.
   

4. •CDN_submm  is a forum for the discussion of the future of mm/submm astronomy in Canada.  Click on the link to subscribe.
   

5. •Early Science Workshops & Tutorials in Canada  A series of workshops and tutorials was held across the country to prepare participants for Early Science cycle 0.  Links within these pages provide a useful introduction to interferometry and ALMA.
   

6. •ALMA Explorer  An interactive tool to explore ALMA, the site, and the surrounding geology and culture.
   

7. •North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC)  Based in Charlottesville, VA, the NAASC is the North American (including Canada) access point to ALMA.  This site contains most of the information and links needed by astronomers to write/submit proposals, get help, and acquire/reduce/analyze data.
   

8. •Upcoming Early Science Workshops & Tutorials in North America Information on other ALMA-related tutorials.
   

9. •Past Conferences & Tutorials in Canada Links to ALMA conferences and tutorials held in Canada
   

10. •ALMA Workshops, conferences, etc. Upcoming ALMA workshops, symposia, etc.
    

11. •International ALMA Website 
    

The ALMA Partnership

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.  ALMA is funded in Europe by the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), in North America by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and in East Asia by the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan.

Canada’s Involvement with ALMA

1. •Canadian ALMA Project Scientist & Project Manager
   

2. •Canadian Contributions to ALMA  NRC-HIA is constructing the Band 3 receiver cartridges.
   

3. •Canadian ALMA Science Advisory Council (CASAC)  A committee of Canadian astronomers which advises the Canadian ALMA project scientist and provides indirect input to the ALMA Science Advisory Council (ASAC).
   

Science and Software Tools

1. •The ALMA Science Portal, which gives scientists access to the Observing Tool (OT), the Helpdesk, and the ALMA Science Archive.
   

2. •The ALMA Sensitivity Calculator is the tool for estimating integration time.
   

3. •The Observing Tool (OT) is the proposal (Phase I) and observation preparation (Phase II) tool.
   

4. •Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) is the offline data reduction and analysis tool. More information about downloading, installing, and using CASA, is available at that site.
   

5. •Simdata is a simulator task built into the CASA data reductions package. CASA includes files of the ALMA array configurations so that investigators can simulate ALMA observations. More information about using this software is available at that site.  ESO is developing a web-based simulator, which should be released soon at http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/alma/observing/tools/.
   

6. •Splatalogue is a database containing frequencies of atomic and molecular transitions which emit in the radio through submillimeter wavelength range.

This site is hosted on behalf of the Canadian ALMA Science Advisory Council by the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics.

Please direct any questions, comments, etc., to the Canadian ALMA Project Manager, Gerald Schieven, at

gerald.schievenATnrc-cnrc.gc.ca

This page last updated  3 November 2011.

Download

Observing with ALMA: A Primer for Early Science

a new revision of the Primer for Cycle 1 will be released late December 2011