Phase 2

Phase 2 Generation for Cycle 11

All Projects approved for observations with ALMA need to go through the Phase 2 generation.  Since Cycle 8 2021, PIs are not requested to submit their validated Science Goals (SGs). The Scheduling Blocks (SBs) corresponding to all approved SGs will be generated by the Observatory in batch mode. Shortly after receiving the notification letters, PIs of approved projects are contacted by ALMA via a Helpdesk ticket. The Project Helpdesk ticket is assigned to a Contact Scientist who will be happy to assist with any queries that may arise. Any necessary communication between the PI and ALMA concerning the approved project should proceed by replying to this Helpdesk ticket. The only exception is for major change requests, which require official change request tickets that have to be submitted by the PIs before the first SB execution. If your project requires Total Power observations and you want to override the observatory-provided reference position, you may also do so on the project ticket before the first SB execution.

Users may also reference the Phase 2 Quickstart Guide, the ALMA Proposer's Guide and the ALMA Technical Handbook for the present Cycle.

The ALMA Observing Tool (OT) is a Java application used for the preparation and submission of ALMA Phase 1 (observing proposal) and Phase 2 (telescope runfiles for accepted proposals) materials.

Download & Installation

The OT should run on all common operating systems and depends on a version of Java being available. In previous releases of the OT it was the responsibility of the user to ensure that a suitable version of Java was installed, but the Cycle 11 version of the OT will come with its own version of Java 11 and thus the user need no longer worry about their local Java installation. Unfortunately, as Java 11 does not include Web Start, this version of the OT is no longer available. (Web Start remains available for the Cycle 8 2021 OT currently used for the submission of DDT proposals.) The Cycle 11 OT can be installed in two different ways, either with a modern installer or manually with a tarball distribution.

It is recommended that the OT be installed using the ALMA OT Installer. This uses a modern graphical interface to report the progress of the installation and allows the user to change various settings from their defaults, including the amount of memory the OT may use. The installation will produce an executable file that can be used to start the OT. With the loss of Web Start, automatic updates of the tool are no longer possible, but the OT will detect if an update is available at start-up and inform the user. If problems are encountered with the installer, then the tarball must be used. The first release of the OT Installer in 2020 would not run on macOS Catalina due to security issues, but these have now been resolved and it should run correctly on all macOS releases, including Catalina and Big Sur.

The tarball version must be installed manually and the instructions for doing this have not changed.

 

Documentation

Extensive documentation is available to help you work with the OT and optimally prepare your proposal:

• If you are a novice OT user you should start with the OT Quickstart Guide, which takes you through the basic steps of ALMA proposal preparation.
• Audio-visual illustrations of different aspects of the OT can be found in the OT video tutorials. These are recommended for novices and advanced users alike.
• More in-depth information on the OT can be found in the User Manual, while concise explanations of all fields and menu items in the OT are given in the Reference Manual. These two documents are also available within the OT under the Help menu.

 

Troubleshooting

If you have problems with the OT, particularly with installation and/or startup, please see the troubleshooting page. A list of currently known bugs, their status and possible workarounds can be found on the regularly updated known OT Issues page. A further source of information is the OT section of the ALMA Helpdesk Knowledgebase - this contains a number of articles that deal with frequently-asked questions. After exploring these resources, if confusion over some aspect of the OT remains, or if a previously unidentified bug has been uncovered, please file a Helpdesk ticket.

 

 

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OT Cycle 11 Web Start download:

 

Mac OS Installer Linux Installer Windows Installer

 

 

Click on one of the links next to the OT Logo to download the Cycle-11 OT Installer for your particular operating system. The Installer is an executable file which can be started by double-clicking in a file-manager window or started from a shell's command line. Once started, it will take you through a number of screens which, for example, allow you to change the default amount of memory available to the OT. In most cases you can just accept all the defaults using the 'Next' button and click 'Install' when you are happy.

After the Installer has finished, an executable file ('ALMA-OT.sh' on Linux and 'ALMA-OT.app' on Macs) should be found inside a directory named 'ALMAOT-C11-2024'. This can be run from the command line or by double-clicking in a file manager if this is configured in this way. We recommend that the name of this directory not be changed so that multiple versions of the OT (for use in different cycles) can be maintained on your computer. On Macs, a shortcut will be created on your Desktop with the name 'ALMAOT-C11-2024' - the OS will probably ask to control your Finder for this to happen.

Additional Information

• The Mac download is a zip archive which must first be opened in order to extract the installer. This will often be done automatically for you or a suitable program will be suggested ('Archive Utility').
• On Linux, typing 'sh almaot-C11-2024.bin' is the recommended way of starting the installer - it should not be necessary to make it executable.
• There may be various issues related to security when running the Installer. Mac users may need to give permission to run the tool by opening the 'Security & Privacy' menu of 'System Preferences' and this menu should also be set to allow the use of apps from 'identified developers'. Alternatively, running the installer by right-clicking and choosing 'Open' (maybe twice) might work. On Windows, we are aware of 'Defender SmartScreen' - this can be bypassed by clicking on 'More Info'.
• It also appears that the installer will not work on older versions of macOS. So far, we only know that this is the case for 10.10 Yosemite. Users of this OS will have to use the tarball.
• In contrast to the previous 'automated' OT installation (Web Start), the OT will no longer update itself automatically if an update is released. However, the OT will inform you if an update is available after which a new version of the OT Installer should be downloaded and the install procedure repeated. Re-running the Installer will overwrite the previous installation.

 

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OT Cycle 11 Tarball download: