Rubin Digest 11 September 2019

11 September 2019

Project & Science News

A reminder, Daylight Saving Time began in Chile on September 8th; there is now a 4-hour difference between official LSST Project Time (Pacific Standard Time) and the time in Chile. 

A Joint Status Review of LSST by its funding agencies, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Department of Energy (DOE), was held in Tucson, AZ on August 27-30. Following the review, LSST Project Manager Victor Krabbendam acknowledged the hard work done by the Project team in successfully representing accomplishments and demonstrating problem-solving abilities. Subsystems are currently drafting responses to the review committee’s recommendations. A photo from the closeout report presentation is available in the LSST Gallery.

The ship carrying the major components of the LSST Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) arrived in Coquimbo, Chile on September 7th. TMA Technical Manager Shawn Callahan and LSST Principal Surveyor Michael Logue, assisted by staff in Chile, oversaw unloading of the cargo; preparations are now underway for transport of the major pieces to Cerro Pachón. Photos of the ship’s arrival and unloading of the cargo in port are available in the LSST Gallery.

At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the ninth Raft Tower Module (RTM) has now been installed in the camera cryostat (photo at this link), marking the completion of the first phase of focal plane integration.

On Cerro Pachón, the LSST all-sky camera saw first light on September 3rd. This camera, installed on calibration hill near the Auxiliary Telescope, will monitor the entire sky every minute of the night, mapping the transparency of the sky (i.e. clouds) to give instant feedback to the LSST Scheduler on where to point the telescope in the sky for efficient survey observations. An image of the sky taken by the all-sky camera is available in the LSST Gallery. 

The LSST Operations team participated officially for the first time at the LSST 2019 Project and Community Workshop. The pre-operations phase of LSST began this fiscal year and will continue until operations begin (October 1, 2022). The Operations team held a breakout session to solicit input from the community on the current plan for serving data during commissioning. This well-attended session also covered aspects of the new funding model, including in-kind contributions for international participants and data rights policy. Community input was received both during and after the session; a link to notes is available here. The Operations team will provide updates on in-kind contributions and data rights in the coming weeks.

The LSST Science Advisory Committee (SAC) met on August 12, during the LSST 2019 Project and Community Workshop. Topics discussed included the future role of the SAC during operations, the role of the SAC and the science collaborations in helping assess proposals for in-kind contributions from international partners, the status of the Operations Simulator experiments the SAC had previously recommended, and the plans for proposals for community event brokers. The full minutes from the meeting are available at this link. 

The LSST Data Management team previously announced a LSST Algorithms Workshop to be held December 3-5 2019 at SLAC. They are delighted to have received strong interest in this workshop from both across the LSST Project and the community. As ideas for this workshop matured however, they realized they needed more time to fully develop the workshop plan. Consequently, they have decided to move this workshop to Spring 2020, to be held at either Princeton or SLAC. Precise dates and venue will be announced shortly.

Information for Project Members

Visitors without LSST credentials traveling to the LSST summit who require network access for any device (computer, phone, etc.) must register these devices in advance by filling out the form at this link. Once a device has been registered, it does not need to be re-registered for future trips to the summit. 

Personnel News

Current job openings with LSST are available on the LSST hiring website. 

Upcoming Meetings with LSST Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2019

September 11-13: AMCL meeting, La Serena, Chile

September 19: Getting Ready for LSST: 5+million small bodies, 1+billion observations workshop at ESPC-DPS 2019 meeting, Geneva, Switzerland*

September 26-27: Midwest Workshop on Supernovae and Transients, Columbus, OH

September 30-October 4: Managing Follow-up Observations in the Era of ZTF and LSST Workshop, Pasadena, CA*

October 7-9: Untangle the Skein with Scarlet: LSST De-blending Pipeline Application Workshop, Naples, Italy

November 6-8: Kavli Petabytes to Science Data Inclusion Revolution Workshop, Boston, MA

2020

January 4-8: American Astronomical Society (AAS) 235th Meeting, Honolulu, HI