Rubin Digest 23 September 2020

23 September 2020

Project & Science News

The first images taken by the LSST Camera at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory received lots of attention from the media and the public after a press release announcing the milestone was issued by SLAC on September 8th. A web viewer for the images that was included with the press release received almost eight million hits in a 24-hour period, and the Romanesco image was by far the most popular! 

On September 11th, Rubin Observatory participated in a thorough audit and review with AURA and NOIRLab to determine whether planned “Phase 1” work activities can safely be restarted on Cerro Pachón. These include limited construction activities for Rubin Observatory and limited science operations for the existing observatories. The plans have been carefully developed by members of the technical, management, and safety teams over several months to establish the highest level of safety for those involved in the limited efforts. After a successful review, it was determined that gradual return to work will begin on Monday, September 28th.

As a response to interest expressed during the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sessions at the Rubin 2020 Project and Community Workshop (PCW), a series of discussions has been scheduled by the extended session’s organizing committee (Federica Bianco, Keith Bechtol, Andres Plazas, and Brian Nord). The overall goal of these monthly discussions is to produce a comprehensive roadmap towards the Rubin community’s equity and social justice goals before next year’s PCW. Each session will focus on a sphere of influence, starting from the documents created in the PCW session, but all are welcome to participate in each discussion. The first meeting is scheduled for October 8th and will discuss "Hiring" as a sphere of influence. More information about the discussion series is available on community.lsst.org. 

A Data Management Leadership Team (DMLT) face-to-face meeting was held virtually on September 15-17. The agenda included a discussion of an Interim Model for Community Support, which provides guidance to Data Management (DM) staff in handling requests for support during Rubin Construction. The interim model is intended to be a step towards the robust support model planned for Operations, and a way to reduce pressure on the DM Construction team as demand for support increases. Details are available in DMTN-155. A photo from the meeting is available in the Gallery. This was the last DMLT meeting for, and the last DMLT agenda prepared by, John Swinbank, who will be transitioning out of the Project over the next few weeks. The DM team thanks John for his many contributions and wishes him well!

The Project Commissioning team is seeking input from the Rubin science community regarding considerations for the on-sky observing strategy during Commissioning that would enhance opportunities for science validation studies. More details and an opportunity to provide input can be found on community.lsst.org. 

A recently-announced LSST Enabling Science 2020 Broker Workshop will be held virtually, October 27-28, 2020. This workshop is organized by the ALeRCE and Fink alert brokers in collaboration with other alert broker teams, the Rubin Observatory Project, and the Rubin Observatory LSST Science Collaborations. The meeting will be an opportunity for valuable interaction between brokers, their community of users, and the alert generation teams. More information can be found on the workshop website.

Operations News

The Rubin Operations team continues to support the international In-kind Proposal teams as they are developing their proposals, and to respond to feedback received from the teams during the process. Read the latest updates, which include an adjustment to the submittal schedule, on community.lsst.org.

Personnel Announcements

Available positions with Rubin Observatory, including the recently-opened Astronomy Content Strategist position on the Education and Public Outreach team, can be found on the Rubin Observatory hiring website. 

Upcoming Meetings with Rubin Observatory Involvement

(those with an asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2020

Sept 23-24: AURA Management Council for Rubin Construction (AMCR) Meeting, Virtual

October 27-28: LSST Enabling Science 2020 Broker Workshop, Virtual*

November 8-12: Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) Meeting, Virtual

December 13-18: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Conference, Virtual

2021

Jan 11-15: AAS 237th Meeting, Virtual