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Cassiopeia Newsletter – Vernal Equinox 2024

Updated: Aug 21, 2025

Date: March 21, 2024


In this Issue:

ALMA Matters

Update on CASTOR

Gemini News

Indigenous Engagement Committee Report

ngVLA Update


Editor: Joanne Rosvick

Cassiopeia is CASCA’s quarterly Newsletter, published on or near the solstices and equinoxes (March 21, June 21, September 21 and December 21).

To submit a contribution please email cassiopeia.editors@gmail.com. All submissions must be received by the due date (usually 2 weeks in advance of publication) to be published in the next edition. I accept plain text and Word documents. Note that the formatting of your document will not be preserved. Please include any images as attachments in your email, not embedded in the text. Please include URLs in parentheses next to the word or phrase that you wish to act as link anchors.

ALMA Matters


By Brenda Matthews and Gerald Schieven (ALMA)(Cassiopeia – Spring 2024)


Cycle 10 Resumes


Cycle 10 observing resumed on schedule after the February shutdown. Band 1 PI observations started last week (with ~40 antennas). ALMA is currently in Configuration 1 and will change to Configuration 2 on 25 March 2024. ALMA will remain in Configuration 2 until 19 April.


Cycle 11 Call for Proposals


On 21 March, the Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) will issue the call for proposals for Cycle 11, which will run October 2024 through September 2025.  The proposal deadline is expected to be 25 April 2024 at 15h UT.

Some of the new capabilities being offered in Cycle 11 include:


  • Band 1 (35 GHz to 50 GHz) full polarization on all antennas of the 12-m Array with the same capability and accuracy as Bands 3-7

  • Band 1 Stokes I on the 7-m Array

  • Full range of configurations (C-1 through C-10) in all bands (Bands 1, 3-10) on the 12-m Array

  • For a full list of capabilities, refer to the ALMA Proposer’s Guide on the documents and tools page


For complete information on the call for proposals, see the documents and tools page.


Cycle 11 ALMA Ambassadors


The selected Cycle 11 ALMA Ambassadors include two Canadians: Jess Speedie of the University of Victoria and Hamid Hassani of the University of Alberta.  Both will be hosting workshops on data reduction in fall 2024 at their home institutions. Jess Speedie intends to host a hybrid workshop to enable participation beyond local participants. Watch this space for more information on these workshops in the next eCass.


The ALMA Ambassador Program provides training and an up to $10,000 research grant to postdoctoral researchers, senior graduate students, and early career researchers interested in expanding their ALMA/interferometry expertise and sharing that knowledge with their home institutions.  The selected Ambassadors receive training at the NRAO headquarters in Charlottesville, VA on topics including interferometry basics, ALMA science capabilities, proposal writing, and guidance on speaking on these topics.  For more information and to apply for the program, see here.


ALMA Primer Video Series


The ALMA Primer Instructional Video series, which can be found on the Science Portal here, is designed to provide a basic introduction to radio interferometry, calibration, imaging, and other topics in short (5-10 minute), easy-to-digest segments.  As a work in progress, new videos are released periodically.  A new video, an Introduction to Self-Calibration, was recently released.  In this ~8 minute video, we look at Self-Calibration, how it works, and how and when to use this powerful technique that can significantly improve the dynamic range of your images.  A new video on Sidebands, Basebands and Spectral Windows will be released soon.


Other videos in the series include an Introduction to Radio Interferometry, Calibration, CLEAN, and much more.  Subscribe to the ALMA Primer Video Series youTube channel to be alerted to new videos as they are released.


We are always looking for ideas for new videos, and especially looking for people who would like to help with script generation, animation, and narration.  If you have an idea or would like to join the Primer Video Working Group (at any level of effort), please contact gerald.schieven@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

Update on CASTOR


By John Hutchings, Patrick Côté (NRC Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Centre)(Cassiopeia – Spring 2024)


CASTOR continues to progress towards approval and flight contracts. An extended (three-year) industrial technical (STDP) contract will wrap up this month, with the final review meeting scheduled on March 21. The work packages are being defined in detail for Phase A, with a subset prioritized in the event flight approval is delayed.

While delayed due to personnel and supply issues, the detector testing to be done at the University of Calgary vacuum facility is planned in detail. In discussions with JPL and Teledyne-e2v, the performance specifications and expectations for the flight arrays are being defined. Significant resources are being devoted by HAA to support this effort.


Our international partners also await funding, to be triggered by a formal approval in Canada, and subsequent agreements. Informal interchange of details continues as official export licences allow. The UK Space agency has approved their initial CASTOR funding to begin this spring. The Coalition for Astronomy has continued a program of meetings and mailings to alert government MPs, the PMO and related ministries to the CASTOR opportunity and international interest. They have also instigated significant media coverage. CASTOR will be represented in several upcoming conferences, including the CASCA AGM in Toronto where a Town Hall meeting is planned.


The recent MIDEX selection of UVEX by NASA offers further, anticipated, opportunity for collaboration and follow-up, similar to the CASTOR surveys coordinated with Roman, Euclid, and Rubin. The delayed launch date of 2030 for UVEX is also compatible with the CASTOR flight schedule.


For more information on the mission, see here.

Canadian Gemini News


By Eric Steinbring with translation by Stéphanie Côté (Canadian Gemini Office, NRC Herzberg Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Centre)(Cassiopeia – Spring 2024)


Upcoming Deadlines


There are three important Call for Proposal (CfP) application deadlines coming up – all back-to-back-to-back – providing Canadians competitive access to Gemini. So just to help keep these straight:


  • First is the monthly CfP for Fast Turnaround (FT) time, at noon Hawai’i Standard Time (HST) on 31 March. For the FT Call see here. These are short proposals that can put a small, but important dataset in your hands quickly;

  • Next, on 1 April is the deadline for full proposals to the Large and Long Program (LLP) 2024 Call. These are big proposals, asking for either significantly more time than a Regular proposal, or spread over many semesters – or both;

  • And then, finally, is the 2024B semester CfP, at 4 PM (PDT) / 7 PM (EDT) on 2 April. This is for Regular semesterly proposals. Look here for the Canadian-specific information about that Call.


Good luck.


New Modes and Instruments


Something new in the North is the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) low-resolution Integral Field Unit (IFU); this has coverage from 1 to 2.5 microns over a 3.15″ x 4.80″ Field of View (FoV) with 0.15″ pixels. A second high-resolution IFU (using the 0.05″-pixel-sampling camera) is also now available on a shared-risk basis in the upcoming 2024B CfP. They can be used along with Altair adaptive optics, and together are meant to replace the venerable Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS) – which has been retired. Incidentally, the Near-InfraRed Imager (NIRI) is also retired, but GNIRS has got your back, allowing imaging using its direct “keyhole” FoV. And, coming soon to the North is the new Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrograph-2 (IGRINS-2), which is essentially a clone of the visiting instrument IGRINS, which will soon leave Gemini South. IGRINS-2 is an efficient, high-resolution (R~40,000; 1.49-2.46 micron) spectrograph, which will undergo a Science Verification phase in the May/June timescale. Keep on the lookout for that!


Student and Outreach Initiatives


A couple things might be of interest, especially to students anticipating making use of Gemini – or, if you’re just curious. One is the Shadow the Scientists program which provides live, interactive sessions with honest-to-goodness astronomers doing astronomy from the big telescopes, and has lately had several sessions at Gemini North (with another coming up soon, on 27 March). It’s worth noting that “eavesdropping”, i.e. remote viewing during a night, is already an option which Gemini invites for successful Regular programs. Another new idea is the Student Visitor Program, which can fund selected graduate students attached to a successful Regular-semester program to visit Gemini (North or South) and, ideally, coordinate the visit to correspond with observations for the program itself. There’s more info here. The general intent of this is for a few students each semester to meet Gemini staff, give a talk, and learn about the observatory operations onsite: the telescope, instruments and data reduction, etc. It proved very popular for the first semester offered, in 2024A.

Indigenous Engagement Committee Report


By Samantha Lawler (University of Regina)(Cassiopeia Spring 2024)


On February 13, the CASCA Indigenous Engagement Committee held its first workshop. The topic was “How to invite a local Indigenous knowledge-keeper to your astronomy class”. We discussed what documents were available for helping employees to fruitfully engage with local Indigenous groups, and compiled a list of these. A couple of institutions did not have a document at all, and several have really fantastic, comprehensive documents. A list of links to documents appears at the end of this article.


Many resources were highlighted during the workshop, but the committee wanted to specifically share a very complete document provided by the Calgary Board of Education that can be found here. This document is a complete elder protocol developed in partnership with many community members, the Native Counseling Services of Alberta and the Human Rights Education and Multiculturalism Fund.

The main take-aways from the workshop are summarized in the bullet points below:


  • Seek the help of a Cultural Mediator provided (or not) by your institution.

  • Be aware of the burden of requests Indigenous people sometimes receive.

  • Clearly communicate the “shared purpose” of a meeting with the elder/knowledge-keeper.

  • Build a relationship before your event/activity.

  • Story telling takes time, it has a purpose to help you, and it is up to you to extract the tools you need from that story. Structured agendas may not be useful in some settings and Elders especially tend to not like time constraints.

  • Elders have to be accompanied with respect over their whole visit to your institution.

  • Gifts and honoraria must be given with care and respect.

  • Ask what is the best way to reach out, it might not be emails.

  • Prepare your participants in advance. Develop and use a code of conduct.


The IEC thanks all the participants for an excellent discussion, and we plan for future workshops with the CASCA community.


List of Indigenous engagement documents from individual institutions:


ngVLA Update


By Erik Rosolowsky (U Alberta), Joan Wrobel (NRAO)(Cassiopeia – Spring 2024)


ngVLA development is continuing apace with ongoing science plan and technology planning in Canada and other engaged nations including Germany, Japan, Mexico, and Taiwan. There are two upcoming conferences that could be of interest to the Canadian ngVLA community.


Follow the Monarchs: A Journey to Explore the Cosmos at (Sub)milliarcsecond Scales with the ngVLA


This ngVLA international science conference will be held November 11-14 in person in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Morelia, Mexico. The conference will highlight and explore the novel scientific opportunities that will unfold with the unprecedented angular resolution and sensitivity capabilities offered by this new flagship facility. The conference will coincide with the Monarch butterflies completing their migration journey from Canada and the US to the mountains surrounding Morelia. Registration and abstract submission will open on April 1.


A variety of oral presentations and posters will be featured, with a special focus on the new science that will be possible at high angular resolution. The ngVLA will allow, for the first time, the detection of thermal emission at 1 mas angular scales, as well as unprecedented high fidelity imaging of non-thermal emission on scales less than 1 mas. Researchers within and beyond radio astronomy expertise are invited to engage in discussions, share insights, and start to plan the groundbreaking science that the ngVLA will make possible. We particularly encourage the participation of early career scientists, who will be the major users of this observatory.


A Coherent View of Atomic and Molecular Gas from Infrared to Radio Wavelengths


This IAU Focus Meeting 2 will be held August 6-7 in person in Cape Town, South Africa. The meeting will explore how the work taking place at existing facilities is shaping our understanding of the interstellar medium structure and feedback in our own Milky Way and external galaxies, and how this work is re-framing the science that will be addressed by the remarkable capabilities of future radio observatories. Contributed speakers will be announced on April 8.

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