rubinann16020 — Announcement

Rubin Digest 03 June 2016

3 June 2016

Project News

The LSST 2016 Project and Community Workshop will take place the week of August 15th in Tucson, AZ, and the website is now OPEN for registration: https://project.lsst.org/meetings/lsst2016/.  Community participants are encouraged to contribute ideas for breakout sessions at this Workshop, through discussion threads in the LSST community forum.  The starting point is here.

The Database team at SLAC hosted their 9th annual XLDB conference last week at the SLAC Linear Accelerator Laboratory.  XLDB events are attended by users and providers who meet to discuss the real-world challenges, practical considerations, and nuts-and-bolts solutions in the realm of managing and analyzing extreme scale data sets. Presentations are available on the conference website.

Several members of the Telescope & Site team will travel to Venice, Italy, next week for a Final Design Review of the Dome with vendor EIE Group.  Meanwhile the Telescope Mount Assembly is moving along with construction of the pier to support the trial assembly and test of the Mount assembly in Asturfeito’s facility in northern Spain; concrete will be poured next week. 

The edge of L1, the first lens in the camera optical path, was damaged during the initial shaping of the lens.  The issue will be resolved with a new boule and with no cost or schedule impact on the LSST project.

The LSST camera’s focal plane array is 189 4Kx4K CCDs organized into rafts of 3x3 sensors, with each raft supported by a base plate.  Engineering Ceramics Materials GmbH (ECM) has been awarded the contract for fabrication of 24 Science Raft Base Plates in the LSST Camera. 

And as many of us in the northern hemisphere are heading into hot summer temperatures, it’s nice to take a refreshing look at the summit of Cerro Pachón and see snow, with more expected this weekend!  While some snow is nice, a lot of snow can cause construction delays and additional costs if the vendor can’t work due to conditions. 

Corporation News

Due to travel constraints, Science Collaboration Coordinator Lucianne Walkowicz will hold Office Hours during the month of June on Wednesday, June 8, and Wednesday June 29, both at noon central time. Office Hours will return to their regularly scheduled first-and-third Wednesdays at 1pm central during the month of July. As a reminder, office hours can be accessed by Google hangout at this link: bit.ly/LSSTSCC_OfficeHours

Personnel News

SLAC scientist Eric Charles has joined LSST, helping the camera team with Integration & Test.

Mechanical Engineer Jessica Li has joined the camera team at Brookhaven National Laboratory, working with the Raft Tower Module team.

Upcoming 2016 Meeting with LSST Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

June  6-10: Dome Final Design Review, Venice, Italy

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 13-15: Camera Workshop, SLAC

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

June 28-July 1: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes & Instrumentation, Edinburgh, Scotland

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

July 22-23: LSST Galaxies Workshop*, at Oxford, UK

July 27-29: 2016 Director's Review of Project Status, SLAC

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

August 16-18: LSST Joint Status Review, Tucson, AZ