Rubin Digest 19 March 2024

20 March 2024

Project and Science News

On March 7th, Rubin’s 8.4-meter Primary/Tertiary Mirror (M1M3) was moved from a storage building on the summit to the maintenance floor inside the observatory for the first time. With this move, M1M3 is officially “home” inside the main observatory building, where it will remain for the rest of Construction and throughout the ten-year survey. More details, photos, and a video of the move are available in this news post. A nine-person team from the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab, where M1M3 was cast, ground, and polished, will be on-site next week to perform the next big move of the mirror onto the steel support cell.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has released a new explainer video for Rubin Observatory and the LSST Camera featuring Aaron Roodman, Deputy Director of Rubin Construction for SLAC. The video is posted on SLAC’s social media channels, including Instagram and LinkedIn. 

Registration is now open for the Rubin Community Workshop, to be held at SLAC in Menlo Park, CA on July 22-26. Registration is capped at 250 in-person attendees, so please register at the link on the meeting website.

Registration is also open for LSST@Europe6, scheduled for September 16-20 on the Island of La Palma, in Spain. The meeting format is hybrid — details and a link to register are available on the LSST@Europe6 meeting website.

The first LSST Latin America (LSST@LATAM) meeting has been announced, it will take place June 10-14 at the Universidad de la Serena, Chile. The format is in-person with remote participation in plenary talks and selected parallel sessions. Event organizers encourage pre-registration at this link (deadline March 31st), which will enable an estimate of attendees and help to refine the meeting’s focus and scope. 

Don’t forget to watch for #WomensHERStoryMonth posts on Rubin social media accounts through the end of March, including this one (on Instagram) featuring Bernardita Ried, a Rubin scientist and PhD student at SLAC, and this one (also on Instagram) featuring Sandrine Thomas, Deputy Director for Rubin Construction.

Operations Updates: 

The Rubin Operations team completed a “Red Team” review convened by SLAC and NOIRLab last week. The review was held to help the Operations team prepare for a successful Joint Operations Review (JOR), convened by NSF and DOE, April 16-18 in Tucson, AZ. The Operations team presented plenary sessions on each department as well as an overview of the observatory and management, cost, and schedule. The team received substantive comments and recommendations from the Red Team panel which are sure to improve the team’s narrative at the JOR in April.

Alan Strauss, Head of Rubin Education and Public Outreach (EPO) and Jose Pinto, EPO graphic designer, traveled to Chile in March to meet with key stakeholders in the Chilean community to discuss building momentum towards Rubin First Light and beyond. The team had meaningful and productive conversations with astronomers, formal and informal educators, EPO staff from other Chilean observatories, and staff at Chilean science museums. They also traveled to the summit with Rubin’s photographer-in-residence to learn more about the final phase of construction, nightly operations, and to generate content resources for the EPO team.

Personnel Announcements & Opportunities

Please spread the word about these new Rubin position openings: Program Operations Manager, Senior Executive Coordinator for Rubin Operations, and Observing Specialist - Early/Mid/Senior career stages (multiple positions). Rubin is also looking for Full-stack Python Developers. Visit the Rubin hiring page to see all open positions with Rubin.

Info for Project Members

Nominate someone for Rubin’s staff awards program to recognize outstanding performance! More information and the nomination form are available on the Staff Awards page on the Project website (login required).

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-profit online store. 

Upcoming Meetings with Rubin Observatory Involvement

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

2024

March 18-20	Rubin ToO 2024, Envisioning the LSST Target of Opportunity Program, Berkeley, CA
March 26-29	NSF Research Infrastructure Workshop, Tucson, AZ
April 15-19	KAVLI-IAU (IAUS 387) Symposium, “(Toward) Discovery of Life Beyond Earth and its Impact,” Durham, UK
April 16-18	Rubin Joint Operations Review, Tucson, AZ
April 17-19	Time-Domain Needles in Rubin’s Haystack, Cambridge, MA
June 10-14	LSST@LATAM, La Serena, Chile
June 16-21	SPIE Astronomical Telescopes & Instrumentation Meeting, Yokohama, Japan
July 8-12	DESC Collaboration Meeting, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
July 22-26	Rubin Community Workshop (formerly PCW), SLAC Menlo Park, CA
September 16-20	LSST@Europe6, La Palma, Spain*

Upcoming Deadlines:

2024

March 31	Applications for 2024 La Serena School of Data Science
April 5	Abstract submittals for Rubin Community Workshop 2024