Rubin Digest 26 February 2020

26 February 2020

Project & Science News

The Rubin Observatory Project Office has released a new name usage guide with information on how to refer to Rubin Observatory in a variety of circumstances. The guide can be found at https://ls.st/name. Please note that in order to appropriately acknowledge Vera Rubin (and not hide her behind an acronym), we are asking people not to use the acronym VRO. 

Commissioning for the Rubin Observatory Auxiliary Telescope (AuxTel) and the LSST Atmospheric Transmission Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (LATISS) has now formally begun. Commissioning activities have involved personnel in Chile, the UK, and Tucson, where the team has been using the new remote operations room that was recently constructed at Rubin Observatory Project headquarters (photo here). Read more about the AuxTel and spectrograph in this recent news item featuring the first images produced by the AuxTel spectrograph in late January. 

At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the first Rubin Observatory LSST Camera production shutter was completed and delivered to the camera clean room on February 19th (photo at this link). The shutter will be installed on the LSST Camera in March in order to verify the mechanical interface, then it will be removed to allow integration of the cryostat with the camera back flange. The shutter will eventually be re-installed as the LSST Camera is undergoing final assembly at SLAC in the summer of 2020. Animations that show how the shutter and other parts of the LSST Camera work can be found at this link. 

On Cerro Pachón, progress continues on the Rubin Observatory Dome and installation of the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) inside the summit facility. The parallel work on these two projects requires close coordination between the teams; daily meetings ensure that activities are scheduled to maximize efficiency and adhere to safety regulations. Recent photos of construction progress are available in the Gallery. 

The AGN (Active Galactic Nucleus) Science Collaboration announces a new meeting, Supermassive Black Hole Studies with the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), on June 1-3, 2020, in Madison, Wisconsin. This meeting is occurring as part of the 236th AAS Meeting. More information about this event is available at this link.

Information for Project Members

Information on how to refer to Rubin Observatory for affiliations on papers, badges, and when registering for meetings appears on the name usage guide page at https://ls.st/name if you are logged in with your Project credentials.

LSST Corporation News

The LSST Corporation continues its campaign to raise funds to sponsor undergraduate students to attend the Rubin Observatory 2020 Project and Community Workshop (PCW). The student program has been a successful part of the PCW for the last two years; photos of the students presenting their  posters at the workshop are available in the Gallery. For more information on sponsorship opportunities visit the LSST Corporation website. 

Upcoming Meetings with Rubin Observatory Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2020

March 17-19: Rubin Observatory Algorithms Workshop, Princeton, NJ

April 14-16: Operations Proposal Review, Tucson, AZ

April 14-16: NSF Large Facilities Workshop, Alexandria, VA

April 27-29: Supernovae Across LSST, Urbana-Champaign, IL*

June 1-3: Supermassive Black Holes Studies with LSST, Madison, WI

June 4-19: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Conference, Yokohama, Japan

June 8-12: Rubin Observatory LSST@Europe4, Rome, Italy*

August 10-14: Rubin Observatory Project and Community Workshop 2020, Tucson, AZ