From May 7 through 16, the East Asia ALMA Regional Center (EA ARC) held a preparatory meeting for ALMA Early Science Observations Cycle 2, which started from June, at the ALMA Building of NAOJ Mitaka Campus (Mataka, Tokyo). The meeting was attended by EA ALMA user support staff members.

The ALMA Regional Centers (ARCs) have been established in East Asia, Europe, and North America to maximize the scientific outcomes achieved by researchers using ALMA. The ARCs are the points of contact and support centers for researchers who conduct ALMA observations in respective regions. As a wider variety of operations will be made available in Cycle 2 compared to Cycle 1, staff members in charge of user support prepared for it through trainings and information sharing.

The preparatory meeting this time consists of two programs. The first one was P2G (Phase 2 Generation) Boot Camp from May 7 through 9. Since the ALMA Telescope is operated by the local operator, not by the observation proposer, the ARC staff needs to prepare some kinds of computer programs called “Scheduling Blocks” for each observation project, to which the “highest priority” has been given by proposal reviews. The scheduling blocks describe the settings of the telescope including target object, observed frequencies, and required sensitivity, etc. In this P2G Boot Camp, the ARC staff learnt how to generate the scheduling blocks for Phase 2.

And the second program was Cycle 2 Knowledge Transfer meeting from May 12 through 16. To promote smooth user support, skilled staff provided and shared their know-how with participants on wide-ranging issues such as data analysis method, quality assurance method of observation data, how to support users at help desk, and the current status of data analysis pipeline software.