rubinann18002 — Announcement

Rubin Digest 31 January 2018

31 January 2018

Project & Science News

The 231st AAS Meeting concluded on January 12 in National Harbor, MD. LSST hosted a well-attended Town Hall during the meeting; slides from presentations given by Beth Willman, Federica Bianco, and Adam Bolton at the event are available here. LSST also staffed an exhibit booth (photo here) in the NSF Pavilion throughout the meeting.

To alleviate persistent communications challenges with terminology LSST will no longer use the Data Management terms “Level 1,” “Level 2,” and “Level 3” for communication with the scientific community about LSST data products. Instead we will use the clearer terms “Prompt Products,” “Data Release Products,” and “User Generated Products,” respectively. This terminology is consistent with the descriptions of each of the three product types in Project documents. A selection of community-facing Project documents and webpages are being updated to reflect the change.

A Provisional Acceptance Test of the washing facility will take place later this month at the Von Ardenne facilities in Dresden, Germany. The review includes observation of the washing boom, seen in this video provided by LSST Coating Chamber Engineer Tomislav Vicuna. This special machinery will remove the old mirror coating and wash the mirror prior to moving it into the coating chamber for recoating. More information about the process for washing and coating LSST’s mirrors can be found in this recent news item.
The Back Flange of the LSST Camera was received at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory last week (click here for a photo). Fabricated from a single piece of aluminum by subcontractor Keller Technologies in Buffalo, NY, the Back Flange provides structural support for the rest of the Camera and is the mechanical interface between the Camera and Telescope. At SLAC, purge line parts and covers will be attached to the flange over the next few months. Then it will be shipped to IN2P3 in France, where it will be integrated with the filter exchange carousel and auto changer.

The LSST Base Facility in La Serena gained a noticeable addition at the end of December  when a tower crane, necessary for ongoing renovation and construction, was installed on the AURA Recinto. The crane, at 29 meters high, is now the Recinto´s tallest landmark. The base of the crane can be seen on the LSST Base Facility webcam, and a full photo is available in the LSST Gallery.

Personnel News

Bo Xin has been promoted to the position of Deputy Systems Scientist.  Bo will assist Systems Scientist Chuck Claver in leading the System Integration Team as part of the Commissioning effort. We’re so glad Bo has taken on this role; please join us in congratulating him.

Julio Alvarez joined the Telescope & Site subsystem on January 17 as a Civil Engineering intern. Julio is a student in his 6th year of Civil Engineering study at the University of La Serena. He will work with Enrique Figueroa and Oscar Nuñez on the Base Facility construction and the Pachón Hotel addition projects. His primary duties will be assisting in work inspection as well as in the review and response to contractor consultations, change requests and other submittals. He will be based primarily in La Serena but will also travel to Pachón to assist with the hotel addition project and to visit the Summit Facility.

Upcoming Meetings with LSST Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2018

February 5: 2018 DESC Meeting/Dark Energy School, SLAC, CA*

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

February 12: Project Office Meeting, Tucson, AZ

February 28-March 2: LSST Telescope & Site Subsystem Meeting, Tucson, AZ

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

April 11-13: LSST Education & Public Outreach Subsystem Meeting, Tucson, AZ

April 16-18: LSSTC Congressional visits, Washington DC

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

April 19-20: AMCL Meeting, Washington DC

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

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

June 19-21: Data Visualization and Exploration in the LSST Era, University of IL/NCSA, Champaign, IL*

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