Allegro, the Netherlands node of the European ALMA Regional Centre (ARC) at Leiden Observatory, invites applications for one or more postdoctoral support position(s). The position offers the opportunity for research at one of the major centres of astronomy in the Europe as well as an in-depth involvement in the development and operations of ALMA.

The deadline for applications is Sept 15, 2023.

The European ALMA Regional Centre network is organising an ALMA School for ALMA users, hosted by the UK Node on 10th - 14th June 2024 in Manchester. The school is designed to provide training on a broad range of aspects related to ALMA, including interferometry, data calibration and imaging, the ALMA archive, analysis techniques, ALMA science and future ALMA developments.

An issue has been discovered in the Cycle 10 ALMA Observing Tool (OT) that affects the estimated Atacama Compact Array (ACA) integration times for some 4x4-bit ACA observations (7-m and TP). We have fixed this problem and a patched version of the Cycle 10 OT is now available on the Science Portal. All PIs of projects that include ACA observations should download the updated OT version and submit or resubmit their proposals using this version. The correct version can be identified by checking for the words "Patch 1" in the title bar at the top of the OT window.

As described in the ALMA Cycle 10 Proposer's Guide, both spectral-line and continuum observations in Band 1 will be available only with the 12-m Array at Cycle 10, from March 2024 onwards. The Observing Tool will not prevent the submission of projects containing Band 1 ACA observations, but Band 1 ACA (7m and Total Power) observations are not technically feasible at this Cycle. Proposals requiring Band 1 ACA observations should therefore not be submitted.

As announced in the October 2022 EU ARC Newsletter, the ALMA partnership is organizing a conference to commemorate its first decade of science operations. The conference will take a look back at the observatory accomplishments, highlight its latest results and look forward to future technical developments. It will take place from 4 to 8 December 2023 in Puerto Varas, Chile. Abstract submission and registration for the conference is now open at the conference webpage with a deadline for abstract submission on the 31st of May 2023.  

The newly published ALMA memo 624 (https://library.nrao.edu/public/memos/alma/main/memo624.pdf) is a re-visit to ALMA site properties and the successor to the Evans 2003 site stringency work (ALMA memo 471 that used only a 300m baseline phase monitor). Importantly, the phase RMS is the main focus of the new memo, and is measured using ALMA data since Cycle 3 (over 17000 Executions blocks). Using the bright bandpass sources, the phase RMS can be measured over various timescales (30s to 240s) and at all baseline lengths observed. Scaling trends are also used to extrapolate short baseline phase RMS (from short baseline configurations) to longer baseline values as to provide a comparable sample for 'summary' baseline lengths of  500, 1000, 5000 and 10000m in all EBs.

The European ALMA Regional Centre invites European ALMA users to a virtual community assembly on April 17 at 11:00 CEST, in connection with the Cycle 10 call for proposals. At this meeting, we will provide more information on the procedures for Joint Proposals with other facilities, including the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the Space Telescope Science Institute's James Webb Space Telescope, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array.