Betelgeuse captured by ALMA

An international team of astronomers led by Pierre Kervella (Universidad de Chile/LESIA/ Univ. Paris-Diderot) and including Anita Richards (UK ARC Node) and Iain McDonald (University of Manchester) has used ALMA to image the surface of Betelguese. The observations at 14 milliarcsecond resolution show an asymmetric surface with two hot spots and an inversion in temperature of the atmosphere between the photosphere and twice the stellar radius, something predicted but for the first time unambiguously seen in these data.

An image of these data is currently ESO's picture of the week. The preprint for the A&A Letter has been posted on arXiv.

 

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

During the ALMA Cycle 4 Supplemental Call for Proposals (ACA only), a total of 198 proposal were received by the JAO. 4815 hours of observing time were requested. 32 proposals (716 hours total) were accepted and added to the Cycle 4 queue for the remainder of Cycle 4. 11 of the 32 (~34%) of the accepted proposals were European.

 

Upcoming ALMA-Related Meetings

National Astronomy Meeting 2017

02-06 July 2017

University of Hull

Hull, United Kingdom

Website

The UK's National Astronomy Meeting for this year will take place in Hull from the 2-6 July. The science program for this year's National Astronomy Meeting can be found here. Sessions of interest to the ALMA community include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Connecting Scales of Galactic Star Formation in Theory and Observation
• Galactic Chemical Evolution, Stars, and the Creation of Elements in the Big-Data Era
• Massive Stars as Cosmic Monsters
• Exploring the High-Redshift Universe with Current and Future Facilities
• The Future of Astronomical Polarimetry
• Current Developments in Numerical Astrophysics

UK ARC Node staff will also be present at NAM and can be found at the ALMA/eMerlin display stand.

 

47th Young European Radio Astronomers Conference (YERAC 2017)

18 - 22 September 2017

Istituto di Radioastronomia

Bologna, Italy

Website

The Young European Radio Astronomers Conference has been held almost every year since 1968 and has been hosted by various European Radio Astronomical Institutes. The purpose of YERAC is for undergraduate, graduate and young post-doctoral students in radio astronomy from all over Europe to meet each other and present their work. "Europe" includes any country from Russia in the East to Portugal in the west as well as affiliates of the European VLBI Network, RadioNet or other current bodies.

For more information see meeting webpage. The registration deadline is 31 July 2017.

 

2017 European Radio Interferometry School (ERIS 2017)

16 - 20 October 2017

ASTRON & JIVE

Dwingelo, The Netherlands

Website

ERIS will provide a week of lectures and tutorials on how to achieve scientific results from radio interferometry. The topics covered by the lectures/tutorials will include the following:

• Calibration and imaging of continuum, spectral line, and polarisation data.
• Low-frequency (LOFAR domain), high-frequency (ALMA/IRAM domain), and VLBI-interferometry.
• Extracting information from the data and interpreting the results.
• Choosing the most suitable array and observing plan for projects.

The registration fee is 165 euro (TBC). It will cover the accommodation and half board for the 5 days of the school.

For registration please see the website for the interferometry school. Please note that places will be limited to ~80, so you are encouraged to register early.