Rubin Observatory Digest for 28 May 2025

28 May 2025

Project and Science News

Mark your calendars! Rubin imagery will be revealed to the world for the first time on June 23rd, 2025. This event, called Rubin First Look, will include a livestream of the official press conference in Washington, DC starting at 11:00 a.m. EDT. Watch parties are being organized in many locations, and anyone can participate virtually in this historic event. Confirmed details are available in this news post, and additional updates will be shared on rubinobservatory.org.

Preparations are ongoing for the Rubin Community Workshop, to be held in Tucson, AZ on July 28 - August 1. Everyone who applied for a talk or poster should now have received an email with their session assignment and a link to presenter information. Late poster applications are still being accepted. Follow the latest updates on the Rubin Community Workshop meeting website.

Those attending at the upcoming 246th American Astronomical Society (AAS) summer meeting in Anchorage, Alaska may be interested in these town hall sessions, both of which are scheduled for June 11th: the Rubin Observatory Town Hall (12:45 p.m. local time) and Vera Rubin Celebration Town Hall (6:30 p.m. local time). Additional information can be found on the AAS 246 meeting webpage. 

Rubin published the 9th in a series of science preview press releases on May 14th. Read “NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory will Unlock New Understanding of Variable Stars” on rubinobservatory.org.

A new feature story, “Ready, Set, Process: Preparing for Rubin Observatory's Data Deluge,” offers a look inside Rubin’s impressive data infrastructure. It’s published on rubinobservatory.org, and on the NSF NOIRLab and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory websites.

The Education and Public Outreach team has made a new resource available for anyone giving a public talk about Rubin — we invite you to make a copy of this “Introduction to Rubin” slide deck. You can use it as-is or edit it to suit your needs. A link to the slide deck can also be found at ls.st/resources.

Commissioning and calibration work continue on Cerro Pachón as the southern hemisphere winter approaches. Follow the latest technical developments on community.lsst.org in the News category with the commissioning-updates tag, and on the LSST-DA Slack workspace in the #commissioning-updates channel. Highlights are also regularly posted on Rubin social media accounts. 

Operations Updates

The National Science Foundation (NSF) convened a Comprehensive Review of NOIRLab last week. This independent review by a panel of astronomy and astrophysics experts, management/budget experts, facility experts, and safety experts, was a major milestone in the current 5-year Cooperative Agreement (CA) period for AURA and NOIRLab. The CA is the management and funding agreement for AURA with NSF. This review was a mid-term review to give NSF feedback on AURA and NOIRLab performance under the CA which includes operations for Rubin, Gemini, CTIO, Kitt Peak, and the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC) as well as support for administration and facilities. After three long days (and nights), the NOIRLab + AURA team received very high marks from the panel as well as a number of constructive recommendations to help further advance the Lab.

Rubin Observatory is prominently featured in a new, downloadable planetarium show created by NOIRLab’s Communication, Education and Engagement team. The show is free for download by planetariums, and focuses on the scientists using time-domain and multi-messenger observations from the International Gemini Observatory and Rubin Observatory to understand our changing Universe. Read more about the release of “Messengers of Time and Space” in this recent NOIRLab release. 

Reminder: If you plan to work with Rubin Data in the future, we encourage you to sign up for an account on the Rubin Science Platform now. This will allow you to get familiar with the interface, work out any issues, and get your data rights verified by the project so you can be sure to get data immediately when Data Preview 1 (DP1) is released. Rubin Data Rights holders can sign up for an account any time by following the instructions here. 

LSST Discovery Alliance News

There’s still time to join us in Tucson on July 27-28, 2025 for the LINCC Frameworks Workshop & Hackathon at the Rubin Community Workshop. This hands-on workshop and hackathon will use Rubin early science data and LINCC Frameworks tools. Hosted by the LINCC Frameworks team, the event includes interactive software tutorials, collaborative project work and expert mentorship. It’s a unique chance to gain experience with the LINCC Framework tools and build cross-disciplinary connections. 

Personnel Announcements & Opportunities:

Open positions with Rubin can be found on the Rubin hiring page.

Info for Project Members:

Nominate someone deserving for a future staff award on the Staff Awards page on the Project website (login required).

If you’d like to schedule a one-on-one meeting with Victor, Zeljko, Bob, or Phil, please fill out this form to indicate your preferred date and time. 

The link to Rubin’s anonymous “suggestion box” will be changing soon, until a new link is announced please use this form (login required) to make suggestions. 

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): 

2025

June 8-12	AAS 246 Summer Meeting, Anchorage, AK
June 25-29	European Astronomical Society (EAS) annual meeting, Cork, Ireland
July 14-18	Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) Science Collaboration meeting, Durham, UK
July 21-25	Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) meeting, Urbana-Champaign, IL & virtual
July 28-August 1	Rubin Community Workshop 2025, Tucson, AZ
September 14-19	LSST@Europe7, Poznan, Poland