ALMA Observation Support Tool

The UK ARC hosts the ALMA Observations Support Tool, a web based ALMA Simulator aimed at all potential ALMA users but particularly for those new to the world of interferometry. It is found at http://almaost.jb.man.ac.uk .

The ALMA Observation Support Tool (OST) is a web based ALMA simulator accessible from all standard browsers. Simulations are preformed using the input parameters selected by users on the OST webpage and can be run on a user uploaded fits image  or from a selection of images found in the OST library.

Once submitted the OST places a simulation in a queue until the job is processed by the CASA-based simulator. Users are notified via e-mail that their submission has been accepted and are again notified when their simulation is complete with the web-address of where to access their results.

 

Example: The following is an example of the OST outputs of simulations using a noiseless model of a bipolar outflow representing thermal bremßtrahlung from a young classical nova (original image credit Heywood & O'Brien (2007)).  

OST Simulations of Nova Model 

Top Left : Original Image. Top Right : Early Science Compact Configuration (Max Baseline 125m).
Bottom Left : Early Science Extended Configuration (Max Baseline 400m). Bottom Right: Full ALMA.

 

The simulations are at ALMA Band 9 in both Early Science configurations and with full ALMA, with 8 hours on source in Early Science and 1 hour for full ALMA. The optimum resolution is used in each configuration except Full ALMA which was chosen to be better than but comparable to Early Science configurations.

 

 

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