Rubin Observatory Digest for 22 February 2023

7 March 2023

Project & Science News 

Remember to mark your calendars for the Rubin Observatory Project and Community Workshop, scheduled for August 7-11, 2023 in Tucson, AZ. More information will be available soon. 

On February 17th, Rubin Construction and NOIRLab partnered to host a celebration of random acts of kindness. For a few weeks leading up to the event, Rubin staff and project members were encouraged to contribute to paper "kindness chains" at Rubin and NOIRLab’s physical locations, adding links to recognize co-workers for acts of kindness. On the 17th, colleagues connected in person and online for a celebration of kindness, which included inspirational words and stories from members of Rubin and NOIRLab staff, and a prize raffle. A collage of event photos is available in the Gallery.

The summit team recently conducted a “cart and rails” testing campaign at the summit facility. The cart used in the tests is the transport cart for the surrogate mass standing in for the Primary/Tertiary Mirror (M1M3) assembly, and the rails are a combination of permanently and temporarily installed rail sections that allow the transport cart to travel between the maintenance floor and onto the moving azimuth section of the telescope mount. The cart and rails test is a step toward the verification for the transportation of the more than 36,000kg (~40 tons) of the final M1M3 mirror-and-cell system on the telescope. Read more details and see a video of the cart and rail tests at this link.

Save the date for “The Transient & Variable Universe” conference, to be held June 20-22 at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). This meeting will bring together the scientific community working on transient and variable science across all wavelengths. The science topics will be wide and ambitious, covering both Galactic and extragalactic science. A second announcement with more details is expected in March, and you can sign up for announcements throughthis form.

A Spanish-only event titled “Noches Astronómicas” will be offered on March 7th at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC). Information and a link to register are available 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. 

The Rubin Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team held two virtual workshops for teachers in January, both featuring EPO’s “Expanding Universe” classroom investigation. One workshop was in conjunction with a week-long course facilitated by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics-South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR) in São Paolo, Brazil, and the other was part of the Universidad de Conception’s virtual Summer School in Chile. These were the first workshops EPO’s formal education team has hosted for teachers in Latin America, and both were very well received. Between the two workshops, more than 200 teachers participated, representing more than 12 countries. Members of the education team also traveled to Houston in early February, where they presented a Solar System workshop at the 2023 Space Exploration Educators Conference.

LSST Corporation News 

The LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program (DSFP) is now accepting applications for new students. You can learn more on the DSFP webpage, and apply directly using this form.

The LSSTC DSFP is a supplement to graduate education in astronomy-related fields (e.g. astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology, planetary science, etc.), intended to teach students essential skills for dealing with big data. The hands-on nature of the program makes it very different from the traditional classroom setting. You don't need to know anything about data science to apply, you just need to be excited to learn.

LSSTC welcomes Andrew Sturner, who began his role as LSSTC Project Manager on February 6th. Andrew comes to LSSTC after four years as a Lecture Faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at San Francisco State University. Prior to teaching, Andrew attended Haverford College, and then he went to theUniversity of Colorado Boulder for his graduate studies in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, working on magnetospheric plasma physics as a member of NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission science team.

Personnel Announcements & Opportunities:

Open positions with Rubin Observatory can be found on the Rubin hiring 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 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):

2023
February 27-March 3	Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) Meeting, Virtual
February 28-March 1	Joint Operations Review, SLAC
March 3	Steve Kahn Symposium, SLAC
March 14-16	SIT-COM & Data ManagementJoint Subsystem Meeting, La Serena, Chile
May 18-19	AURA Management Council for Rubin Observatory (AMCR) meeting, location TBA
June 12-16	Statistical Changes in Modern Astronomy (SCMA) VIII, Pennsylvania State University
July 24-28	Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) Meeting, SLAC
August 7-11	Rubin 2023 Project & Community Workshop, Tucson, AZ
August 21-25	Joint Status Review, Tucson
September 25-29	LSST@Europe5, Poreč, Croatia[]