New Science Verification Data Portal

The rotating circumstellar disk around the Herbig Ae star HD163296, observed in the J=3-2 line of CO by ALMA. The contours outline the first moment intensity map of the emission.
The rotating circumstellar disk around the Herbig Ae star HD163296, observed in the J=3-2 line of CO by ALMA. The contours outline the first moment intensity map of the emission.
A new installment of Science Verification data is available. This release contains three new datasets corresponding to targets suggested by the community and listed on the Science Verification web page:

- The protoplanetary disk HD163296: this nearby (122 pc) 900 AU circumstellar disk around the Herbig Ae star HD163296 was imaged at high spectral resolution by ALMA in the lines of several isotopes of CO (λ~1.3mm), and of the main isotope of CO (λ~0.87mm), demonstrating the mixed modes capability at Bands 6 and 7.

- The Galactic Centre, Sgr A*: recombination lines at Band 3

The Science Verification data sets are available through the ALMA Science Portal at ALMA Data. The data products released here contain raw, uncalibrated data to allow users to try their hands at a complete data reduction process. A calibrated data set is also provided, allowing users to perform data analysis and post-processing, as well as reference images generated from the reduced data sets. There are data reduction suggestions for these datasets provided in the form of a script, as well as additional information about the dataset in a README file.

We hope that you will find that the quality of these datasets is impressive, but please remember that ALMA is still in the construction phase, and we are continuously testing new observing modes. These observations are made using new equipment and software and thus may contain more idiosyncrasies than data released to PIs in Early Science.

We thank the large number of staff at the JAO and the ARCs who have participated in the commissioning activities, observations and data reduction that made this release possible.

Reminder: In order to reduce and/or analyze the ALMA data, users need to use the Common Astronomy Software Applications (CASA) package. The CASA package can be accessed through http://casa.nrao.edu. The CASA Guide requires the CASA 3.4 version. Feedback on the data and on the CASA software is always welcome!

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