Overview

A new class of astronomy postgraduate students will be starting their studies this autumn, and many students will be working with ALMA data.  The purpose of this workshop is to help new students get started with their ALMA research.

The workshop will be conducted by staff from the UK ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) Node.  Because of the ongoing issues with COVID-19, the workshop will be conducted virtually using Zoom

The workshop will be scheduled as a series of half-day sessions running an entire week and will cover the following topics:

  • An introduction to ALMA
  • An introduction to radio interferometry
  • An overview on using the ALMA Archive
  • Calibrating and inspecting data from the ALMA archive
  • Imaging ALMA data
  • Data analysis

At the end of the workshop, UK ARC Node staff will be available to help with any questions related to participants' specific research.

 

 

Schedule

Monday, 9 November

10:00 Welcome and Introductions
10:45 Introduction to ALMA
11:15 Introduction to Interferometry
12:00 Break
12:30 Introduction to the Observing Support Tool (the online ALMA simulation tool)
13:00 Introduction to the Observing Tool (the GUI used for preparing observing proposals)
14:00 End

 

Tuesday, 10 November

10:00 Introduction to CASA
10:45 Introduction to the ALMA Archive
11:30 Science Talk (Adam Avison)
12:00 Break
12:30 Examining Downloaded Data (including an introduction to using ALMA's image viewers)
  Notes about Downloaded ALMA Data
Image Viewer Slides
14:00 End

 

Wednesday, 11 November

10:00 Examining Downloaded Data (continued)
  Reviewing the WebLog
11:30 Science Talk (Anita Richards)
12:00 Break
12:30 Imaging
    scriptForImagingZCma.py
14:00 End

 

Thursday, 12 November

10:00 Imaging (continued)
11:30 Science Talk (George Bendo)
12:00 Break
12:30 Imaging (continued)
14:00 End

 

Friday, 13 November

10:00 Astroquery Demonstration
     astroqueryExample1.py
     astroqueryExample2.py
     astroqueryInput.csv
10:45 Optional Assistance withn Imaging

 

 

Pre-Workshop Downloads

UK ARC Node staff are available to help with the installation of CASA and any other software needed for the workshop.  We will be contacting participants before the workshop to set up Zoom calls to help with the software installation.

 

CASA 5.6.1

To work on the data calibration, imaging, and analysis activities, participants will need access to a computer running CASA version 5.6.1.  (Although newer versions of CASA are available, they cannot be used to pipeline-calibrate ALMA data.)  This software is available for both Linux and Mac but unfortunately not for Windows.

Download Link

 

ALMA Observing Tool (OT)

One of the workshop sessions is based on using the ALMA Observing Tool, which is used to submit proposals but which is also useful for understanding how ALMA observations are configured.  This can be installed on either Windows, Mac, or Linux computers.

Download Link

 

CARTA

CARTA is a new image viewer that will eventually replace the current image viewer in CASA.  It operates very smoothly, but because it is still under development, it is missing some functions.

Download Link

 

Example Datasets

While the workshop will be guiding people through downloading ALMA archive data, calibrating those data, and then imaging those data, participants may want to download data for the workshop early either because of concerns about slow download speeds or because of potential technical issues with creating some of the datasets.  These data can be downloaded from the links below.

Note that the total amount of disk space needed to do all of the data processing is about 70 GB. The calibrated and science only visibility data are optional downloads and are only necessary for situations where it is not possible to calibrate the archival data or perform some of the steps in the imaging script.

Archival Data

Product Files (archival images)

Auxiliary Files (calibration information, logs, quality assessment reports, and scripts)

Raw Visibility Data

README file

Calibrated Visibility Data (optional)

Science Only Visibility Data (optional)

Continuum-Subtracted Science Only Visibility Data (optional)