rubinann16004 — Announcement

Rubin Digest 05 February 2016

5 February 2016

Project News

Project team members from all subsystems have uploaded materials and practiced presentations in preparation for the NSF Status Review and Internal Operations Planning review taking place sequentially in Tucson next week. 

Project Science Team discussed requirements for advance observing schedule publication and was debriefed on a recent workshop about systematic effects at UC Davis. Various proposals to improve information flow between the Project and Science Collaborations were also discussed, as well as the agenda for open PST face-to-face meeting at the upcoming Joint Technical Meeting in Santa Cruz.

Data Management (DM) is working on updating the project-wide IT Security Plan and closing out the Winter 16 software release, including cleaning up documentation for both developers and end users.  The DM sizing model, used to evaluate engineering tradeoffs and estimate costs, has also had its technology basis updated and shows no major deviations.  DM is actively investigating the overlaps between LSST software and Astropy and looking into possible ways to increase compatibility between the two.

Two contracts were signed for installation of the network fiber optic cables in Chile from La Serena to the gate at the boundary of the AURA observatory property in the Elqui Valley, and from the gate to the summit on Cerro Pachón.  The former is contracted to REUNA and the latter to Telefonica.

The excavation for the telescope pier foundation on the summit has been completed, inspected by geotechnical engineers to verify competence of the rock structure, and surveyed for exact dimension. Everything looks good and the foundation is scheduled to be poured on February 22.

Corporation News

LSSTC welcomes several new International Contributors - The Governing Council of the University of Toronto (Canada), The University of Auckland (New Zealand), The Ruđer Bošković Institute (Croatia), Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zuerich (Eth Zuerich) (Switzerland), The Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) (Germany), The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) (Germany) and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) (Germany).  Agreements with these institutions and LSSTC enable participation of specified Principal Investigators to have full rights to LSST data products before and during the ten-year survey.
The LSSTC Enabling Science Committee is soliciting proposals for LSSTC funding to support workshops, schools and other projects to prepare for the research, education and outreach opportunities with the LSST data.  We are accepting proposals for activities planned through early summer 2017.  Proposal information can be found on the LSSTC website.

Personnel Notes

We welcome Administrative Assistant Nicole Auza to our Chile Project Office. 

Research Engineer Jagadeesh Yedetore and Research Scientist Santanu Chaudhuri, both from the Applied Research Institute at UIUC, have joined the LSST Data Management team at NCSA.  NCSA is coordinating with the Applied Research Institute to develop the required LSST production system and services.

Upcoming 2016 Meetings with LSST Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

February 8-10: NSF Status Review, Tucson, AZ

February 21: LSSTC Part 2 Proposal Letters of Intent due*

February 22-24: LSST Joint Technical Meeting, Santa Cruz, CA

March 7-11: LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) meeting, SLAC

March 8-10: 2nd Annual US-Chile Education Summit(link is external), Chile

March 21: LSSTC Part 1 and Part 2 Proposals due*

April 5-7: Photometric Redshifts in LSST*, University of Pittsburgh

April 11-13: LSSTC Board Meeting* in Washington, DC

May 22 – 25: Cross-correlation Spectacular with LSST:  Exploring Synergies Between LSST and External Datasets to Discover Fundamental Physics, BNL

May 24-26: XLDB 2016 Conference and Workshop, SLAC

June  6-10: Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy VI*, Carnegie Mellon University

June 12-16: Meeting of the Stars, Milky Way and Local Volume Science Collaboration* at AAS 228, San Diego, CA

June 20-24: LSST@Europe2*, Belgrade, Serbia

June 28-July: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes & Instrumentation, Edinburgh, Scotland

July 18-22: LSST DESC meeting, at Oxford, UK

August 15-19: LSST 2016 Project & Science Workshop, Tucson, AZ