A new Band 9 receiver was installed inside the Swedish ESO PI receiver for Apex (SEPIA) at APEX in early February. This receiver, built by NOVA, is a copy of the ALMA Band 9 receiver, and covers frequencies from 600 to 722 GHz. After on-sky commissioning in late March, Science Verification (SV) observations are planned. Ideas for SV, which will allow testing of a large variety of observing modes for this new receiver, are encouraged.

The Call for Proposals for SEPIA Band 9 SV and further details can be found at the Call for Science Verification Proposals pagefor SEPIA Band 9.

Announcement from the Italian Node
11-12 April 2015 - Osservatorio di Radioastronomia Bologna, Italy

In preparation to the ALMA Cycle 4 proposal submission deadline of April 21st, the Italian node of the European ARC is organizing an "ALMA proposal preparation day" to support the ALMA users to prepare their proposals. This meeting will be held at the INAF-Osservatorio di Radioastronomia, Bologna, on the 11-12th of April.

As indicated in the Pre-announcement for the Cycle 4 Call for Proposals, the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) will accept proposals for Large Programs for the first time in Cycle 4. An announcement which provides guidelines to prepare a Large Program proposal can now be found on the ALMA Science Portal.

Half a Decade of ALMA: Cosmic Dawns Transformed

This international four-day conference will highlight ALMA results at the threshold of the array's fifth year of science operations and bring together researchers from around the world to motivate collaborations for ALMA Cycle 5.

September 20 - 23, 2016
Renaissance Indian Wells Resort & Spa
Indian Wells, CA, USA

A new installment of Science Verification data is available. This release contains data on the following Science Verification target: IRAS16293-2422 spectral line observations in Band 4 (CH3CN, CH3OH) with the 12-m Array, demonstrating the Band 4 capability.

More information can be found on the ALMA Science Portal

People interested in proposing VLBI observations with ALMA should be informed that ALMA will participate in some GMVA observations during ALMA Cycle 4 at 3mm wavelengths in the period Oct 1 2016 - Sept 30 2017. More details can be found in the ALMA Cycle 4 Pre-announcement.

Announcement from the German Node
To prepare the local astronomical community for Cycle 4, the German ARC node organizes the German ALMA Community Days 2016 at the Argelander-Institut für Astronomie in Bonn on 6-8 April 2016.

Announcement from the German Node
The course "Radio Interferometry: Methods and Science", held in English at the university of Bonn in April-July 2016, offers a hands-on overview of major aspects of radio/mm/submm interferometry for master students, PhD students and senior astronomers. The course also comprises hands-on tutorials, where participants learn how to reduce interferometric data with the widely used astronomical software packages AIPS and CASA.