Rubin Observatory Digest for 06 September 2023

7 September 2023

Project and Science News

This year’s NSF/DOE Joint Status Review (JSR) for Rubin Construction took place August 22-25 in Tucson, AZ. Rubin leadership and team leads gave presentations summarizing current and remaining work on various aspects of Rubin, and participated in detailed discussions with review committee members in subsequent breakout sessions. The official report containing the review committee’s recommendations will be delivered to Rubin leadership in the coming weeks. A photo from the review is available in the Gallery.

The Survey Scheduling Team announces the release of a new OpSim output, “baseline_v3.2_10yrs.db,” which illustrates the baseline v3.2 survey strategy for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The v3.2 survey strategy is an evolution of the v3.0 survey strategy recommendations from the Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC). Learn more on community.lsst.org.

Major integrations on the summit continued with the installation of the secondary mirror (M2) cell and surrogate mirror on the telescope mount on August 25th. The team, the procedures and the equipment were all well-prepared, and the process was carried out smoothly and safely. In the coming days the camera integrating structure with the Commissioning Camera (ComCam) will be reinstalled in the center of the newly-mounted M2 cell. Over the next several months, the team will resume dynamic testing of the TMA and all of the now-installed subsystems to verify that they are performing together in compliance with their specifications in their rotating and tilting locations on the telescope.

We invite you to watch a new animated video released by the Rubin Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team: “Boom! Using supernovae to map our expanding Universe,” now available in English and Spanish on YouTube. This is the fifth in a series of animated videos explaining Rubin and its science to a public audience.

LSST Discovery Alliance Updates

We are excited to announce the call for proposals (deadline October 16th, 2023) for the third cohort of the LINCC Frameworks Incubator program, which starts in the first quarter of 2024. This cohort will provide dedicated funding and collaborations with software engineers to proposal teams who pitch compelling projects to be carried out in collaboration with the LINCC Frameworks team. Incubator projects should be aimed at solving computational challenges to develop open-source software that will enable a near-term science project using simulations and precursor data, and that serves as a starting point towards future LSST data analysis. For more information and a link to the proposal form, visit the LINCC Frameworks Incubator web page.

Rubin in the Media:

A recent episode of The Planetary Society’s podcast Planetary Radio (featuring an interview with Mario Juric and Ari Heinze) showcases the HelioLinc3D algorithm developed for Rubin Observatory by the DIRAC team at UW, and how it recently detected its first potentially hazardous asteroid. Listen at this link.

Rubin’s Education and Public Outreach (EPO) program, which debuted publicly in June 2023, was featured in a recent article in Symmetry Magazine titled “Vera C. Rubin Observatory brings the universe to everyone.”

Operations Updates:

Reminder: The third phase of Data Preview 0 (DP0.3) containing simulated Solar System catalogs is available. The DP0.3 data set was generated by members of the Rubin Solar System Pipelines and Commissioning teams, with help from the LSST Solar System Science Collaboration. The DP0.3 data set was installed and made available in the Rubin Science Platform by Rubin Observatory staff. Visit community.lsst.org for more details and instructions on how to access the DP0.3 data sets.

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.

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

Upcoming Meetings with Rubin Observatory Involvement

(those with an asterisk* are supported by LSST Discovery Alliance):

2023

Upcoming Deadlines:

2023