Ondřejov ARC node

European Southern Observatory (ESO), of which the Czech Republic is a member since 2007, has been building the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) since 2003. After its completion in 2012, ALMA will be the forefront instrument for studying the cool universe at an unprecedented level of sensitivity and resolution. With the responsibility of providing scientific support to the user communities, three ALMA Regional Centres (ARCs), located in Europe, North America and East Asia, were charged. The European ARC will operate in synergy with a distributed network of ARC nodes (Bonn-Bochum-Cologne, IRAM Grenoble, Bologna, Leiden, Onsala, Manchester).

Regarding the lack of any ARC node eastwards from the axis Onsala-Bologna, the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic has proposed to ESO to create a new node in the Czech Republic.

The Ondřejov ARC node should provide regional support to applicants from countries of the Central and Eastern European region, e.g. from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary etc., that are not ESO members yet, and to Czech ALMA users. It will provide especially the following services:

• scientific and technical support to ALMA users in the fields that are not yet covered, or are covered only partially, with other existing European ARC nodes, especially
  • solar and (extra)galactic astrophysics
  • laboratory measurements of molecular spectral lines,
• observation planning, data quality check,
• data storage and processing, data reduction using CASA.

The Ondřejov ARC node is to be formed as a consortium of the Astronomical Institute, ASCR and the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) in Prague, with further cooperation with the Charles University in Prague and the Masaryk University in Brno.

Link to presentation of the Ondřejov ARC node by M. Karlický (ppt).

Head: Marian Karlický

e-mail: karlicky@asu.cas.cz

tel.: +420 323 620 356

Address: Fričova 298, 251 65 Ondřejov, Czech Republic

Under construction...