Rubin Digest 06 September 2022

6 September 2022

Project & Science News

The Rubin Science Advisory Committee (SAC) held a meeting at the Project and Community Workshop, and has posted the minutes of the meeting, including a number of findings and recommendations for Rubin management. They include the SAC’s suggestions for the Rubin website and communications plan; discussion of the progress made by the Survey Cadence Optimization Committee and the work that lies ahead; clarifying the Observatory’s plans for Early Science operations; support for the Solar System science community before Rubin begins gathering data; and many other topics.

At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the LSST Camera team recently celebrated a significant achievement: the integration of the L1L2 lens assembly with the Camera structure on August 18th, 2022. The time lapse video was picked up by CNET—it shows a group of SLAC engineers and technicians performing the delicate installation procedure in the LSST Clean Room. These two lenses, combined with L3 (previously installed) and a set of optical filters make up the Camera’s portion of Rubin Observatory’s optical system. The larger lens in L1L2 assembly has been designated by Guinness World Records as the largest high-performance optical lens in the world.

The Rubin Observatory Commissioning Camera (ComCam) was successfully installed on the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) on the summit of Cerro Pachón on August 24, 2022. This is the first of many optical components to be integrated with the telescope structure, and an important step towards getting real astronomical data flowing from the observatory. Read more about the achievement in this news item.

Staff highlights for September are now live on the Rubin project website. This month, read about your colleagues Wil O’Mullane, Ian Ordenes, Gregg Thayer, and Adam Thornton.

The US celebrates Hispanic American Heritage Month from September 15th-October 15th. The month is designated to recognize the achievements and influence of Hispanic Americans in US history and culture. Through its DEI initiatives (e.g., hiring at SACNAS, translating materials into Spanish, etc.) Rubin Observatory strives to continue to support its Hispanic American staff and community members, and to make a positive impact. As we are continuously looking to improve, we are always open to hear ideas.

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

Announcement & Opportunities

Agnès Ferté joined the pre-Operations Data Production team as Rubin Operations Scientist on August 1st. Agnès will be based at SLAC and will be working on detector characterization and calibration on the Algorithms and Pipelines team, as well as in-kind program coordination. 

Sierra Villareal joined the pre-Operations Data Production team as Software Developer on August 15th. Sierra will be based at SLAC and will be working on campaign management tooling and technical coordination of Independent Data Access Centers (IDACs).

Neven Caplar joined the Rubin Systems Engineering team as an AP Commissioning Postdoc on September 1st. Neven will be based at the University of Washington, and will be supporting the Rubin UW commissioning effort: understanding the first data from LSST and bringing the system into operations. Neven will be working on Rubin Construction at 50% time, and devoting 50% of his time to the LINCC Frameworks project.

Spread the word: applications are still being accepted for a Rubin Observatory Community Scientist for Documentation, to support the delivery of user-facing scientific documentation related to Rubin data products and software. More details about this and other positions with Rubin Observatory are available on the  Rubin jobs page.

Info for Project Members:

If you’d like to schedule a one-on-one meeting with Victor or Zeljko, 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
September 13-16	NSF Major and Mid-scale Research Infrastructure Workshop, Boulder, CO
September 14-15	AURA Management Council for Rubin Observatory (AMCR) Meeting, Palo Alto, CA
September 19-23	Joint Status Review, Tucson, AZ
September 26-30	RR Lyrae and Cepheid stars meeting: “Large-scale Surveys as Bridges between Spectroscopy and Photometry,” Island of La Palma, Spain
October 24-28	LSST@Europe4*, Rome, Italy (hybrid)

 

Upcoming Deadlines:

2022
September 15	Register for LSST@Europe4 (virtual participation)