Rubin Observatory Digest for 17 June 2025

18 June 2025

Project and Science News

Rubin First Look, the online event revealing the first Rubin images to the world, is just days away (June 23rd). A livestream of the press conference in Washington, DC will be shown on YouTube (starting at 11:00 a.m. ET) and Watch Parties are scheduled in many locations. Visit rubinobservatory.org after the press conference to explore all Rubin’s First Look image products in more detail.

In addition to First Look, June 23rd will also be Rubin’s next “Day in the Life” image/video collection day. Whatever your day looks like, we hope you’ll snap a photo or record a quick video during your workday and share it with us. We’ll compile them for our ninth “Day in the Life of Rubin Construction” video, to highlight the incredible range of people and activities that make Rubin such a unique and vital place to work. Check out past videos and get inspired to submit your photo on or around June 23rd.

The agenda is now available for the Rubin Community Workshop, to be held in Tucson, AZ on July 28 - August 1. Follow the latest updates on the meeting website.

A new feature story highlighting the broad range of people who make Rubin successful, “Lights, Camera, Cosmos: The Cast and Crew Behind Rubin Observatory,” is published on the Rubin website in English and Spanish.

On the summit, on-sky commissioning has now been underway for a little over eight weeks. Recent technical updates from the Commissioning team are available 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 posted on Rubin social media accounts. 

Rubin in the Media

Edward Ajhar, Rubin Observatory’s Program Officer with the U.S. National Science Foundation, was interviewed on Fraser Cain’s Universe Today podcast for an episode that aired on May 5th. Listen on YouTube.

A video titled, “Never before seen images of our Universe,” posted by BBC News’s Tech Now program, appeared on the BBC News website on May 30th. Also on BBC News, “Mapping the Universe at the Rubin Observatory in Chile” published on YouTube on June 13th. 

Scientific American published an article about Rubin titled, “Blockbuster New Vera Rubin Observatory Will Change Astronomy Forever” on June 12. Read the article on Scientific American’s website.

Operations Updates

Rubin Data Preview 1 (DP1) will be released on June 30th, 2025, one week after the Rubin First Look event. DP1 will contain approximately 2000 exposures in seven fields taken during the Commissioning Camera on-sky campaign. More information is available on community.lsst.org. Data rights holders who haven’t signed up for an account on the Rubin Science Platform can do so now by following the instructions here. 

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 23	Rubin First Look Press Conference, Washington DC
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