CASA Project Scientist Page

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Hi, I'm Steve Myers, and I am the NRAO CASA Project Scientist. My job is to be the liason between the user communitiy, the NRAO projects, and the CASA development group. I lead various groups that provide scientific guidance to the CASA project, and help manage the project requirements.

This page contains information that I think will be helpful to users and those seeking information about the scientific aspects of the CASA project.

CASA News from the Project Scientist

A CASA Tutorial was held at NRAO-Socorro on 4 December 2007. See the CASA Training Page for info on CASA Tutorials and training materials.
There are a number of CASA Job Opportunities still open!
CASA is now in Beta Release phase. See below.
In February 2007, I issued the State of the CASA Package message.

Interferometric Imaging

I have prepared a draft of a paper describing the process and challenges of Interferometric Imaging from the standpoint of signal processing. You can find a PDF version here.

If you are interested in learning more about interferometric imaging and data processing, NRAO is hosting a Synthesis Imaging Summer School to be held 10-17 June 2008 in Socorro, New Mexico.

Science Requirements

There are two main sets of Science Requirements for CASA, set by the ALMA and EVLA projects. These are what the CASA team works from during development.

Most recent drafts and audits:

The CASA Beta Release

Starting in October 2007, we are implementing a staged Beta Release of the Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) data reduction package. This software has been under development in support of the ALMA and EVLA project, but is intended to also be of general use for radio astronomy data post-processing. This staged release will allow personnel involved in the construction, operations, and advisory committees for ALMA and EVLA to adopt early use of the package for commissioning, development of user support capabilities, and to provide feedback to the CASA team.

Initially, through early 2008, access to the Beta and support for CASA users will be restricted to ALMA and EVLA project personnel and key committee members in order that the CASA development will not be burdened with user support and can continue to make progress to complete the suite of basic functionality and to pursue advanced algorithm development needed for ALMA and EVLA. During this period, CASA User Support Specialists will be trained in the use of the CASA Beta Release, and in turn these specialists will train others as needed. In 2008, we plan to gradually expand the availability of the Beta Release to others in the community as our user support capabilities ramp up.

See the Beta Release Page for more details

We apologize for any incovenience that this limited release policy may cause. However, the gradual staging of the release is necessary due to limited manpower within the project, in order to properly ramp up our User Support system and to not burden the developers. Please stay tuned as we open up to broader community use in 2008 and 2009!

The Beta Release is aimed at supporting basic interferometric data reduction. It will support the import of data in a limited number of formats, and a reasonably full set of processing capabilities for only a limited number of observing modes. See the beta release notes for more information on supported observing modes and data formats.

Please send any comments or questions about CASA to casa-request@nrao.edu

This code is available under the terms of the GNU General Public Lincense

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Modified on Tuesday, 06-May-2008 15:26:23 MDT