Rubin Digest 28 July 2020

28 July 2020

Project & Science News

The Rubin 2020 Project and Community Workshop (PCW) is right around the corner, (August 10-14), and there are currently 350 people registered—a new record! If you haven’t registered yet please do so as soon as possible on the meeting website. 

Rubin Observatory Project staff participated in a Joint Directors Review during the week of July 20-24, in preparation for the Joint Status Review scheduled for August 31-September 3rd. The review committee complimented the progress made by the Project up to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and commented favorably on the Project’s modifications and plans to address issues related to the COVID delay. A group photo from the review is available in the Gallery. 

The Rubin Observatory/LSST Science Collaborations will host a two-day hackathon on Aug 6-7, immediately before the Rubin 2020 PCW (Aug 10-14). The goal of the hackathon will be to kickstart work on the metrics used to assess different observing strategies for LSST, so the focus will be on evaluating Python code (with the MAF API). The hackathon is open to everyone, from all Science Collaborations or Rubin subsystems, and it was made possible by an Enabling Science grant from the LSST Corporation. More details and a link to register are available on the hackathon website and on community.lsst.org.

Following the All-Virtual Rubin Algorithms Workshop in March 2020, the Rubin Data Management (DM) team is organizing a follow-up session at the Rubin 2020 PCW to address open issues and questions that emerged from the workshop. The DM team is currently soliciting questions from the community in advance in order to prepare responses, which will be presented and discussed during the PCW session. Additional questions regarding the Data Management algorithms and pipelines are also welcome. Please submit your questions using this form.

The Rubin Observatory Operations team is organizing an Early Science session at the Rubin 2020 PCW to address open issues and questions emerging from the ongoing planning activities on the Construction Project and Operations Program. The Ops team is now soliciting questions from the community in advance in order to prepare responses, which will be presented and discussed during the PCW session. More details and a link to submit questions can be found on community.lsst.org.

The Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team partnered with the National Earth Science Teachers Association (NESTA) to host a virtual user-testing workshop for teachers on July 20-24. Ardis Herrold, Rubin Observatory Education Specialist, presented five classroom activities (Investigations), currently in development, to workshop participants in order to solicit feedback. Approximately 100 teachers participated in the live online sessions, which featured daily science talks from members of the Rubin Observatory/LSST Science Collaborations, and breakout sessions in which teachers worked through the investigations in small groups. Photos from the workshop are available at this link. 

Winter weather continues on Cerro Pachón, with small teams traveling to the summit bi-weekly (and more frequently as needed) to inspect and maintain equipment. Recent work has included removing some moisture from the azimuth track and ensuring that no damage has occurred, and also repairing wind damage to the shutters on the Auxiliary Telescope enclosure. Essential electrical upgrade work on the summit has also been ongoing, and this is now being followed by IT work: re-establishing connectivity to enable better monitoring of critical systems and support for remote work. Photos from the recent summit visits are available in the Gallery.

Rubin Observatory in the Media

A new video highlighting the complexity of the LSST Camera and the Rubin Observatory Project, produced by Seeker as part of their Focal Point series, is available on YouTube. The video features interviews with Rubin Observatory Project members Daniel Gruen and Stuart Marshall from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Personnel Announcements

The Systems Engineering team welcomes Holger Drass, who joined the Project as System Verification Engineer on July 15th. Holger will be developing detailed system and subsystem verification plans, generating test cases and procedures to verify requirements in System Integration and Commissioning, maintaining and updating the observatory SysML model in MagicDraw, and facilitating the implementation of approved change and deviation requests.

The Rubin Observatory SIT-Com team has an open position for a Commissioning-Verification Scientist who will play a key role during the Projects System Integration, Test and Commissioning phase with extensive duties on the summit site in Chile. More information on the position is available on the Rubin hiring website. 

Upcoming Meetings with Rubin Observatory Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2020

August 6-7: Rubin Observatory/LSST Science Collaborations Hackathon, Virtual*

August 10-14: Rubin Observatory Project and Community Workshop 2020, Virtual

Aug 31-Sept 3: Joint Status Review, Virtual

Sept 23-24: AURA Management Council for Rubin Construction (AMCR) Meeting, Virtual

December 13-18: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation Conference, San Diego, CA