On June 18, the East-Asian ALMA Regional Center (EA ARC) held an orientation/consultation meeting titled “ALMA Town Meeting in Mitaka” for the preparation of the ALMA observation proposal. This meeting is to provide practical instructions on how to make a proposal with dedicated software aiming at the next cycle of early science observations (Cycle 1), for which ALMA invites proposals from May 31.

To acquire a time slot out of the limited ALMA observation time, we have to submit a proposal and win a fierce competition with hundreds of astronomers all over the world. The EA ARC holds ALMA Town Meetings in various places and provides support for researches with ALMA so that many competitive proposals will be submitted from EA ALMA led by Japan. At the meeting, EA ARC staff provided one-on-one support answering questions from each participant at his/her seat.