Rubin Digest 08 May 2018

8 May 2018

Project & Science News

Registration is open for LSST 2018; register now at this link. Proposals for meeting sessions are also currently being accepted here. The deadline for submitting session topics is May 14.

Several LSST subsystem staff presented status updates and recent accomplishments on May 1 at the LSST Open House for the AURA Member Representatives Meeting in Tucson, AZ.

An LSST team spent 5 days in Spain last month conducting a thorough safety review of the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) at the facility of vendor Asturfeito. The group inspected the numerous safety features included in the TMA, and reviewed the procedures by which the group of vendors responsible for building the TMA (referred to as UTE) will verify that the hazard mitigations meet LSST requirements. Read more about the review in this news post.

The Education and Public Outreach (EPO) subsystem held a Citizen science workshop in April to discuss logistics surrounding the use of LSST data for Citizen Science projects. EPO team members were joined by key representatives from LSST Data Management, as well as leadership personnel from Zooniverse, EPO’s citizen science platform partner. The face-to-face meeting proved very productive in making preliminary decisions and establishing next steps.

LSST’s Auxiliary Telescope (AT) arrived on the Summit of Cerro Pachón at the end of April, and its heaviest components have now been lifted by crane into the Ash Dome on calibration hill. The AT left Tucson in early March, traveling by truck to Houston, by ship to San Antonio, Chile, and again by truck to Cerro Pachón. A photo of the AT in its enclosure is available in the LSST Gallery.

A team from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) worked in Chile last week, installing security and servers which will soon bring LSST’s initial services online. This infrastructure, the first of NCSA's equipment ever to be placed outside of the United States, is being built in preparation for the LSST Base Facility Data Center. Photos are available in the LSST Gallery.

Did you know you can order clothing items featuring the LSST logo at Land’s End? Use this link to browse and place your order.

Personnel News

Mario Rivera joined the Telescope & Site subsystem on May 2 as Mechanical Integration Engineer in Chile. Mario will assist with and coordinate activities at the LSST summit site for the telescope assembly, integration and verification (AIV) as subsystems are delivered and integrated, including the Auxiliary Telescope and the Coating Chamber.

Ian Ordenes joined the Telescope & Site subsystem on May 2 as Senior Electronic Technician in Chile. In this role, Ian will perform various tasks related to electronics implementation, support, and tests on the summit, including the electronic lab, control of the platform lift, the Auxiliary Telescope electronic system, and the Primary/Tertiary Mirror (M1M3) electronic support system.

Upcoming Meetings with LSST Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2018

May 21-22: DECam Community Science Workshop 2018, Tucson AZ

June 4-8: TVSSC (Transient and Variable Stars Science Collaboration) Survey Strategy Proposal Preparation Workshop, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA*

June 10-15: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Meeting, Austin, TX

June 11-15: LSST@Europe3, Lyon, France*

June 19-21: Data Visualization and Exploration in the LSST Era, University of IL/NCSA, Champaign, IL*

July 10-12: 1st Solar System Science Collaboration Science Readiness Sprint, Seattle, Washington.*

July 23-27: LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration meeting, DE School and Sprint Day, Carnegie Mellon University PA*

July 30-Aug 3: NSF/DOE Joint Status Review, Tucson, AZ

August 13-17: LSST Project and Community Workshop 2018, Tucson, AZ