rubinann17024 — Announcement

Rubin Digest 07 November 2017

7 November 2017

Project & Science News

A Day in the Life of LSST Construction, Part III is now available! We received 142 submissions which were compiled into an 11-minute video that can be viewed in the LSST Gallery and on our YouTube channel. Thank you to all contributors, and to LSST Graphic Designer Emily Acosta for assembling the images, videos, and captions together into the final product.  

Telescope & Site team members Tomislav Vucina and Doug Neil travelled to Germany recently to review progress on the Coating Plant, which will be used to aluminize both LSST’s Primary/Tertiary Mirror (M1M3) and its Secondary Mirror (M2). At the MAN factory in Deggendorf, the LSST Team verified that major components of the Coating Chamber Assembly are in place. The team then traveled to the Von Ardenne facilities in Dresden, where they inspected the Washing Boom and other components of the already-assembled Washing Station. Photos from both visits are available in the LSST Gallery. The 9-meter Coating Chamber is still on schedule to be shipped to Chile in May 2018, and to be ready for initial coating of the M1M3 and M2 mirrors in September 2018.

At CAID Industries in Tucson, the Surrogate Mirror has now been mounted to the M1M3 Cell (click here for a photo). This is a significant milestone for both the Surrogate Mirror and for the M1M3 Cell, allowing the start of the next phase of integration: installing the figure actuators.

The Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) conference was held in Chile for the first time on Oct 22-26. With approximately 400 participants, it was the highest attended ADASS conference of the 27 held so far. LSST had a strong showing with both North and South project members attending; participation included several posters, a talk, and a Birds of a Feather (BoF) session. Several participants remained in Chile for an additional three days for the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) meeting. Click here for a photo of the LSST team at ADASS.

Ten LSST team members visiting Chile for ADASS used the opportunity to visit Cerro Pachón as well. They toured the LSST construction site on the summit and visited LSST’s neighbor, Gemini. The group also tried out the canteen (called Casino up on the summit) and visited the Blanco telescope on Cerro Tololo. Click here for a group photo.

Personnel News

A new position is available with LSST: Systems Engineer/Requirements Manager at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Information about this and other open positions can be found on the LSST hiring website.

Christine Banek joined the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team on October 23 as the Senior Cloud Solutions Architect. Christine will be helping to design and build the cloud-based EPO Data Center which will be used to share a subset of LSST data with the general public. Her experience includes complex technical projects, such as infrastructure and security for Xbox LIVE and the build and telemetry systems at SpaceX.  

Upcoming Meetings with LSST Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2017

November 7-9: LSST Safety Council Review, La Serena, Chile

November 30 - December 1: AURA Workforce & Diversity Committee (WDC), Baltimore, MD

December 4-8: LSST/DESC 2017 Fall/Winter Sprint Week,  Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL*

December 5-7: Dual Agency Review of the Operations Proposal, Tucson, AZ

December 13-15: III Workshop LSST Chile: Towards Science in Chile with LSST, Santiago, Chile

December 18-19: Project Science Team Meeting, Tucson, AZ

2018

January 8-12: American Astronomical Society (AAS) 231st Meeting, National Harbor, MD

January 10: LSST Town Hall at AAS 231, 7:30 pm

February 5: Dark Energy School, SLAC, CA*

March 5-9: Systems Engineering/Data Management Joint Technical Meeting, Pasadena, CA

February 5-9: LSST-DESC Collaboration Meeting, SLAC, Menlo Park, CA*

June 10-15: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Meeting, Austin, TX

April 18-20: Statistical Challenges for Large-scale Structure in the Era of LSST, Oxford, UK*

June 11-15: LSST@Europe3, Lyon, France

August 13-17: LSST Project and Community Workshop 2018, Tucson, AZ