Rubin Digest 25 May 2021

26 May 2021

Project & Science News

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the 2021 Rubin Project and Community Workshop (PCW), which will be held virtually August 9-13. We anticipate that registration will open by the end of May.

The Community Forum landing page has been re-designed to align with Rubin Observatory visual identity guidelines, you can admire the new look at community.lsst.org. 

Rubin Observatory now has a permanent, operational overhead bridge crane (OBC) in the dome; it was certified after successful load testing on May 14th. This 18-ton capacity OBC will be used to continue telescope assembly and system integration during construction, and will facilitate maintenance and repairs throughout Rubin Observatory operations. More details are available in this recent news item. 

The system integration team has been working on the refrigeration pathfinder, testing the compressors and load heaters, and they plan to turn on the whole system very shortly. The team is on track for installing the integrated Commissioning Camera (ComCam) and the refrigeration pathfinder on the telescope rotator (on the camera cart on the third level of the summit facility building) in the next month or two, in preparation for installing onto the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) by the end of this year. ComCam proper has been operating for several months constantly and is proving to be a very good testbed for observatory and camera software development and interface testing.  

Operations Updated

The Rubin-Euclid Derived Data Products (DDP) Working Group will hold a virtual meeting on June 30th to summarize the input received to date on Rubin-Euclid DDPs. All are welcome to participate; details can be found on the forum.

LSST Corporation News

The 2021 LSST Corporation Enabling Science Call solicited proposals for LSSTC funding to support student researchers working on projects connected to Rubin/LSST science.  From the successful call, LSSTC received 57 proposals from 50+ unique PIs, totaling over $343K (two-times oversubscribed). Proposals are currently under review; awards are expected to be announced by May 28th, 2021.

Applications are now being accepted for the next cohort of the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program, a two-year training program designed to teach skills required for Rubin Observatory science that are not easily addressed by current astrophysics programs. The program consists of three, one-week schools per year over the two year period. Graduate students in astronomy and astronomy-related fields are welcome to apply, the deadline is June 11th, 2021. More information is available at this link. 

Personnel Announcements

Open positions with Rubin Observatory are listed on the Rubin hiring website. 

Upcoming Meetings with Rubin Observatory Involvement

(those with an asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2021

June 7-10: Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy VII, Virtual

June 15-17: Project Re-baseline Review, Virtual

July 19-23: Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) Meeting, Virtual

August 9-13: Rubin Project and Community Workshop (PCW) 2021, Virtual

September 13-15: Joint Status Review, Virtual

September 23, 24 & 27: AURA Management Council for Rubin Observatory (AMCR) meeting, Virtual