Rubin Digest 07 December 2021

7 December 2021

Project & Science News

This issue of the News Digest will be the last for 2021; look for the next issue in mid-January. Season’s greetings and best wishes for the New Year! 

Catch up with Rubin Observatory at the American Astronomical Society Winter meeting (AAS239), January 9-13, 2022. If you’ll be at the meeting in Salt Lake City, UT, be sure to stop by the Rubin exhibit booth (you’ll get a chance to win a prize) and attend our Open House on January 11th. If you won’t be at the meeting, you can follow us on social media.

On November 23rd, the team on Cerro Pachón used the dome bridge crane and the camera lifting fixture to remove the camera surrogate mass from the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) and place it on the camera cart. The next day, they reversed the operation and inserted the camera surrogate mass back into the TMA. Although this procedure had been performed in the Asturfeito factory in 2018, this was the first time the exercise was done inside the observatory dome. More information is available in this news item, and photos of the successful procedure are in the Gallery. 

At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, all six of the LSST Camera filters have been installed in their storage container (see photos here). When they ship to Chile next year the filters will be removed from the container and packed separately, and the container will also be shipped—it’s the same one that will be used on Cerro Pachón to store the filters when they are not installed in the camera. 

The Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC) held a community workshop, on November 16-17, to gather input from across the community and provide opportunities for the community to comment on recommended survey strategy. Presentations given at the workshop are linked from the meeting agenda webpage. The SCOC plans to finalize its Phase 1 report on December 15th.

The Education and Public Outreach team is soliciting expertise from the Rubin community to ensure the high scientific quality of the classroom investigations being developed for formal educators. Review experts in the following areas are requested: classifying Solar System bodies, identifying potentially hazardous asteroids, using Type Ia SNe for Hubble’s Law and galaxy redshifts, using Type Ia SNe to estimate distances to host galaxies, using color images to highlight physical properties of objects, and using galaxy colors to explore the observable Universe and its evolving large-scale structure. The review will be conducted mostly independently starting in mid-January, and should require about 4-6 hours to complete. More information is available in this post on community.lsst.org.

December staff highlights are featured on the Project website; read about your colleagues Farrukh Azfar, Juan Fabrega, Marc Moniez, Jaime Seriche Robledo, and Alysha Shugart at this link.

Rubin Observatory swag items, including t-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, and more, are available for purchase in our not-for-profit online store. 

Rubin in the Media

An article featuring Rubin Observatory and the LSST Camera appeared in Gizmodo on November 22nd. Read it at this link. 

Operations Updates

A successful Joint Directors’ Review of Rubin Operations took place virtually on December 1-3. The review panel reported that the Rubin team is well prepared for the Joint Status Review in February, and appears to be generally well positioned for the transition to operations. A group photo is available in the Gallery.

The first version of the “Rubin Observatory Plans for an Early Science Program” document is now available. This is a living document; both it and the Early Science Program will continue to evolve over the course of commissioning and pre-operations in response to the state of the as-built system and community guidance. More information and a link to the document can be found in the Early Science category on community.lsst.org. We welcome feedback and input from the community.

Announcements & Opportunities

Alexandra Goff joined the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team on November 29th in the role of Senior Frontend Developer. Alexandra is responsible for helping to create and maintain the frontend infrastructure and user interfaces for EPO’s public-facing web products. This includes the future operations website, interactive widgets for data exploration, and the online education program.

Info for the Project Members

If you’d like to schedule a one-on-one meeting with Victor or Steve, please fill out this form to indicate your preferred (and backup) date and time. 

There is also an anonymous “suggestion box” for anyone to offer feedback at this link. 

Upcoming Meetings with Rubin Observatory Involvement

(those with an asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

 

2022
January 9-13	239th AAS Winter Meeting, Salt Lake City, UT
January 11	Rubin Observatory Open House at AAS 239, Salt Lake City, UT
January 26-27	AURA Management Council for Rubin Observatory (AMCR) Meeting, Tucson, AZ
February 21-25	Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) Meeting, virtual

 

Upcoming Deadlines:

2021
January 16	NOIRLab Scientific Staff Job Applications (includes Rubin Community Engagement positions)