ALFALFA: The Arecibo Extragalactic HI Legacy Survey

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The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA project, ("ALFA" is the name of a new seven-beam radio camera: the Arecibo L-band Feed Array) at the 305-m radio telescope in Puerto Rico is an ongoing cutting-edge survey which will map approximately 17% of the entire sky. Upon its completion in 2010, approximately 20,000 extragalactic neutral-hydrogen line sources will be found. This survey is the deepest, highest resolution blind extragalactic neutral hydrogen survey ever conducted over a comparable area of the sky. The Principal Investigator and his team lead the survey, which is organized as an open collaboration and based on principles of enabling maximal scientific return and engaging the broadest community of researchers. The Virgo Cluster is a top target in the survey area, which makes the project potentially even more interesting as it is likely that important new structures may be found. Graduate students are involved in all phases of the project, helping to plan and execute the observing program, developing software for data processing and analysis, and producing public data products, as well as undertaking their own science projects. The group will provide a rich and homogeneous dataset, which enables many applications by the broadest possible community ans is useful in synergy with wide area surveys conducted at other wavelengths.