Statistics from the Cycle 9 Call for Proposals
Time requested by cycle for ALMA.
ALMA continues to be in high demand. For the Cycle 9 Call for Proposals, 1769 proposals were submitted, and they asked for 27900 hours of observing time with the 12 m array. This is the most time ever requested in a single cycle. The oversubscription rate is 6.5, which is indicative of the enthusiam that the astronomical community has for observing with ALMA. Additionally, 40 Large Programs were submitted for Cycle 9, tying the record for Cycle 8. The proposals will now be reviewed, with the outcome of the review process being announced in August 2022.
More information about the Cycle 9 Call for Proposals is available from the announcement on the ALMA Observatory website.
Press Conference on Milky Way Results from the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
14:00 BST (15:00 CEST) 12 May 2022
The European Southern Observatory and the Event Horizon Telescope will be holding a press conference to discuss groundbreaking results from the telescope. This event will be streamed on both the ESO website and the ESO YouTube channel. Following this, ESO will host an additional live question and answer session with members of the public on its YouTube channel.
More information on the event is available from the announcement.
MEMOIR - Molecular EMissiOn IdentifieR
An example plot from MEMOIR.
The UK ARC Node has created the tool MEMOIR, which detects the lines present in a spectrum and tentatively identifies them by comparing their frequencies against those of known lines. The tool was born as part of the inter-ARC project Lines in Protoplanetary Disks, which has the goal of generating a catalogue of the molecular lines detected for (ideally) each protoplanetary disk observed with ALMA.
MEMOIR is a stand-alone Python 3 package that can be installed using the following command:
pip install memoir-lpd
Details about the package's functionality can be found on its GitHub page. For additional information about MEMOIR or to provide feedback, contact its developer at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
I-TRAIN 14: Using ALMA archival data - A Primer
10:00 BST (11:00 CEST) 20 May 2022
This I-TRAIN tutorial will present a new ALMA document titled Using ALMA archival data - A Primer. The document provides basic introductory information of how to use the ALMA data available through the ALMA Science Archive (ASA), including how to query, extract and scientifically exploit the content of the ASA. The presentation will provide brief summaries of the contents of each chapter in the primer (but will avoid discussing the content of the chapters themselves). Following this, we will hold a Q&A session discussing the document.
The presentation will be accessible from this Zoom link. The Using ALMA archival data - A Primer document is accessible from the Cycle 9 Documents page and the Archive Documentation page.
e-MERLIN Call for Proposals
e-MERLIN requests proposals from the international astronomical community for observations to be made during Cycle-14 (01 August 2022 - 31 January 2023). e-MERLIN provides high angular resolution (12 - 150 milliarcsec) and high sensitivity (microJanksy) imaging at cm wavelengths as well as polarimetry, spectroscopy, and astrometry, and the array is an SKA-pathfinder instrument providing observations with resolutions and frequencies comparable to those that will be provided by SKA1-mid. e-MERLIN observations address a broad range of science topics, and its unique combination of angular resolution and sensitivity provide crucial insights in multiple science areas.
Proposal submission information can be found on the Observing with e-MERLIN page. The proposal submission deadline is 13:59:59 UT on 18 May 2022.
UK Square Kilometre Array Regional Centre (UKSRC) Online Workshop 1: UKSRC Science community priorities, demonstrators and engagement
30 May 2022
Online
This online workshop focuses on identifying the UKSRC Science community priorities, demonstrators and engagement for the STFC call UK Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Regional Centre: 2022. The overarching aim of these activities is to achieve the objectives of the UK SKA Regional Centre (UKSRC) strategy, enabling the highest return from the UK investment in the SKA project. More information is available from the eventbrite page.
Prior to the workshop, the organizers invite the UK community to provide feedback on their scientific priorities for and interests in using data from the SKA and pathfinder facilities. This will inform the breakout groups for the workshop, which will focus on UK Science community priorities, demonstrators, and engagement. Two surveys are available:
- UK Astro priorities for SKA-LOW (SKA and pathfinder facilities using low frequencies)
- UK Astro priorities for SKA-MID+ (SKA and pathfinder facilities using mid or both low and mid frequencies)
Please submit feedback by 13 May 2022.