The German node of the ALMA Regional Center was established as one initiative of the Research Association for Interferometry in North Rhine-Westphalia ("NRW Forschungsverbund Astro-Interferometrie").

The ARC intends to provide user support for all levels of ALMA users and will serve as a basis for public outreach and a training site that offers specialized courses, schools, and workshops to advance the knowledge of radio-interferometric techniques and science.

In addition to the regular ARC tasks, the German ARC node will focus on several specific areas of expertise, which include:

  • The development of advanced data analysis tools
  • Maintainance and upgrade of the Cologne Database for Molecular Spectroscopy (CDMS)
  • Data pipeline heuristics (calibration, data capture)
  • Polarization calibration and observation optimization
This website will serve as an information point for the scientific community interested in ALMA and will include news, outreach and education announcements as well as job vacancies at the German ARC node. For more background on the node, follow the link to the 'About the German ARC' section.
AG2010

Astronomische Gesellschaft

 The annual Fall meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft (AG) with its 83. General Assembly will take place at the main building of the University of Bonn starting Monday, September 13 and ending Friday, September 17, 2010.
The central theme of the meeting will the the exploraiton "Zooming in: The Cosmos at High Resolution"


For more details visit the home page of the meeting.

German ARC node Mailing List

 A mailing list has been set up that will be used to post ALMA related information of interest to the German ALMA community, including conference/workshop and job announcements, call for proposals and further ALMA ARC news.

Please subscribe here!
ARTIST
Within the framework of the ASTRONET programme, "Common Tools for Future Large Submillimeter Facilities", we have initiated a project, "Adaptable Radiative Transfer Innovations for Submillimeter Telescopes (ARTIST)", to develop a next generation model suite for comprehensive multi-dimensional radiative transfer calculations of the dust and line emission, as well as their polarization.
More information on the project as well as related job vacancies can be found at the ARTIST homepage.

ALMA/ARC News
03/02/2010 07:18 PM
The ALMA Observatory expresses its condolences to the victims of the Chilean earthquake. ...

A major earthquake of magnitude 8.8 occurred in central Chile at 03:34 local time (06:34 GMT) on Saturday 27 February 2010. The epicenter was 115 km northeast of the city of Concepción, the second most populated city of the country, and 325 km south-west of the capital Santiago. The earthquake has caused significant casualties and damage in the country, mostly in the South, close to the epicenter, and in the central region. Numerous aftershocks have been reported since.

ALMA expresses its deepest condolences to the families of the victims, and its sympathy and support for all those who have been affected by the earthquake.

Everyone working for the ALMA project in Chile has been personally affected. We are immensely relieved that, as far as we can ascertain at this time, there have been no serious injuries to ALMA staff and their families, although many have suffered severe property damage.

The ALMA sites in the North were not affected by the earthquake and access to the Santiago offices, which do not seem to have suffered major damage, is being restored.

In order for our staff to be with their families during this national crisis, ALMA has decided to reduce its level of operations until Saturday March 6th. Support services at the OSF are running as normal and most of the people continue working from their home or from the Santiago Central Offices.

The Santiago airport is slowly restoring flights but with lower frequencies than normal and modified schedules. ALMA will monitor and assess the situation on a daily basis. We request that any international staff who had planned travel to Santiago get in touch with their ALMA contacts to determine when travel is advisable. At present, communications remain unreliable in certain areas (especially in the South) and mobile phones and the Internet are intermittently available.