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7 December 2021: Project & Science News This issue of the News Digest will be the last for 2021; look for the next issue in mid-January. Season’s greetings and best wishes for the New Year! Catch up with Rubin Observatory at the American Astronomical Society Winter meeting (AAS239), January 9-13, 2022. If you’ll be at the meeting in Salt Lake City, UT, be sure to stop by the Rubin exhibit booth (you’ll get a chance to win a prize) and attend our Open House on January 11th. If you won’t be at the meeting, you can follow us on social media. On November 23rd, the team on Cerro Pachón used the dome bridge crane and the camera lifting fixture to remove the camera surrogate mass from the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) and place it on the camera cart. The next day, they reversed the operation and inserted the camera surrogate mass back into …

16 November 2021: Project & Science News Rubin Observatory will host an exhibit booth at the American Astronomical Society Winter Meeting (AAS239), to be held January 9-13, 2022, in Salt Lake City, UT. There is also a Rubin Observatory Open House scheduled during the meeting, on the evening of January 11th. At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the LSST Camera team achieved full cooldown of the focal plane and electronics on November 3rd, with both cooling systems running together for the first time since January 2021. Read more about the achievement in this news item. The Rubin Auxiliary Telescope (Aux Tel) team has continued conducting on-sky observing runs on a monthly basis, with a focus on gathering data for engineering performance analysis. The team shared this image, taken on November 3rd during the most recent Aux Tel observing run, which shows the effect on stars observed during a 5.7 magnitude earthquake centered north of …

2 November 2021: Project & Science News The Second SCOC-Science Collaborations Workshop will be held virtually on Nov 16-18. The main goal of this workshop is to discuss draft recommendation for the initial survey strategy formulated by the Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC), which is available at this link. More details can be found at the workshop website. Registration is open until Nov 8th: please register if you plan to attend. Data Management team members Wil O’Mullane, Frossie Economou, and Dino Bektesevic (University of Washington) gave presentations on Rubin’s early experiences with Google Cloud at the Astronomical Data Analysis Software & Systems (ADASS) XXXI meeting, held October 24-28. The Data Management group also provided substantial support for the Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) Sprint Week, held October 25-29. The Camera team at SLAC has begun moving the six LSST Camera filters into their custom storage box using the filter loader with assistance from …

19 October 2021: Project & Science News Rubin Observatory leadership showcased recent accomplishments and discussed upcoming plans at this year’s National Science Foundation (NSF)/Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Status Review, which was held virtually October 4-7. The review panel congratulated the Project on notable progress made despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and commended the team for providing a path to a new baseline and project completion. The panel also recognized Steve Kahn, who will be stepping down as Rubin Observatory Director in 2022, for his two decades of leadership and dedication to the Project. The Rubin Auxiliary Telescope (AuxTel) was driven with the feature based scheduler for the first time during an observing run on October 5-7. The feature based scheduler is an extremely flexible software application to produce observing sequencing strategies. This is the same application that will drive the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) in the future, albeit with a …

5 October 2021: Project & Science News Read the details about the recent rotation of the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) on Cerro Pachón, in elevation and azimuth, in this recent news item, which also features a video of the event. The Commissioning Camera (ComCam) imager was restarted in August, shortly after ComCam was mounted on the integrator assembly in the integration hall of the summit facility (Level 3). The integrator assembly, which will be integrated with the TMA in early 2022, is resting on the main camera transport cart and includes ComCam, the refrigeration pathfinder, camera rotator and hexapod, camera cable wrap, and various utilities. ComCam continues to operate, and is providing a valuable test platform for system verification and commissioning activities. Testing of the integration assembly is also underway, with a current focus on full camera rotator range verification. Recent photos are available in the Gallery. The LSST Camera Major Item of …

21 September 2021: Project & Science News It’s official, two components of Rubin Observatory have made it into Guinness World Records! The Rubin Observatory LSST Camera is the world’s highest resolution digital camera, and the camera’s L1 lens is the world’s largest lens. What other world records will Rubin Observatory achieve? The mass simulator for the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera was shipped from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) on September 3rd, 2021, and arrived successfully on the summit of Cerro Pachón, in Chile, on September 13th. This shipment was an important test run for the delicate LSST Camera, which is scheduled to ship to Chile from SLAC next year. The entire shipment process was carefully monitored and tested to record any events that might indicate the possibility of damage to the LSST Camera. Read the details in this news item. The u-band filter for the LSST Camera has been installed in its frame …

8 September 2021: Project & Science News At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the integrated LSST Camera cryostat and utility trunk was successfully lifted onto its test bench in mid-August (photo here). The work was planned and executed by a team that included Rubin staff, SLAC Contract Assurance, SLAC Environment, Safety & Health (ES&H) and the Bay Area Site Office. This ~$100M assembly is the core of the final camera; it contains the 201 sensors and all the supporting electronics, vacuum and cooling on-camera systems. The installation of this assembly on the test bench will enable completion of the next phase of testing, before further integration of the LSST Camera. The LSST Camera Major Item of Equipment (MIE) project Critical Design (CD)-4 independent project review was conducted on August 19th and confirmed completion of the Camera Department of Energy (DOE) Key Performance Parameters—a major step towards formally closing the MIE project. The remaining Camera …

18 August 2021: Project & Science News This year’s Rubin Observatory Project and Community Workshop (Rubin 2021) wrapped up on Friday, August 13. The 5-day meeting was held virtually again this year, and set a new record: 828 registrants! The workshop covered topics important to Construction, Operations, science, and community engagement. More details about the meeting can be found in this news item. We encourage everyone who attended to fill out the exit survey (available through August 27th), which is linked from the meeting website (login required). The AURA Roman-Rubin Synergy Working Group is soliciting “science pitches” from the community that incorporate synergies between Rubin Observatory and the NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The deadline for submission is August 31, 2021. More information is available on the AAS website. All six of the LSST Camera filters have now been delivered to the Rubin Construction Project by the coating vendor, with excellent performance. …

27 July 2021: Project & Science News The detailed agenda for the Rubin 2021 Project and Community Workshop (PCW) is now available on the meeting website (login required). It’s only visible to those who registered for the meeting, so if you can’t see it, make sure to register! The PCW will be held virtually, August 9-13. Two significant new developments have recently taken place at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. On July 22nd, the LSST Camera team received the z and y band filters from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), marking the halfway point of the full set of six filters arriving at SLAC (the remaining three filters are expected to arrive in a few weeks). The team at SLAC also completed the integration of the camera utility trunk with the camera cryostat, which will allow them to restart the electro-optical testing of the full focal plane using the final refrigeration system and all …

14 July 2021: Project & Science News Rubin Observatory Construction is pleased to introduce an updated mission statement: Build a well-understood system that will produce an unprecedented astronomical data set for studies of the deep and dynamic universe, make the data widely accessible to a diverse community of scientists, and engage the public to explore the Universe with us. This updated statement acknowledges the importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts taking place across the project. The Rubin 2021 Project and Community Workshop (PCW) is less than a month away! If you haven’t already signed up, we encourage you to visit this link (login required) and register today. The meeting will be held virtually, August 9-13. If you’d like to give a flash talk for the Rubin Research Bytes (RRB) session, or indicate interest in participating in an anti-racism workshop, please register for the meeting by Friday, July 16th. Rubin Observatory announces an …

30 June 2021: Project & Science News Don’t forget to register (at this link) for the 2021 Rubin Project and Community Workshop (PCW), which will be held virtually August 9-13. A comprehensive re-baseline review for the Rubin Construction Project was conducted on June 15-17. The review committee complimented the Rubin team on the high-quality documentation provided, and expressed confidence in the team and the success of the project. A group photo is available in the Gallery. The Project team will now work to address the recommendations from the committee. The Rubin Auxiliary Telescope (AuxTel) returned to on-sky observing with a nighttime run during the week of June 7th, after a hiatus in May due to increased COVID-19 restrictions. AuxTel is proving to be a valuable test platform for the rest of the Observatory, the next observing run is scheduled for early July. Enjoy this video, an animation of images taken with AuxTel spectrograph …

8 June 2021: Project & Science News Registration is now open for the 2021 Rubin Project and Community Workshop (PCW), which will be held virtually August 9-13. Details and a link to register are on the meeting website (login required). Congratulations to the Data Management Science Quality and Reliability Engineering (SQuaRE) team, who were recently awarded the “2021 Built on InfluxDB Award for Best Application” for the Rubin Observatory Engineering Facilities Database (EFD). The SQuaRE team built the EFD to serve as the central repository for telemetry data from different subsystems relating to the Rubin summit facility, and it is powered by InfluxDB, a time-series database. Details about the award can be found here. The Data Management team is seeking community feedback on Rubin’s developing plans for the timeseries features it will compute on alert and Data Release lightcurves, as discussed in this technote. Details are available on community.lsst.org (login required). The floor …

26 May 2021: Project & Science News Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the 2021 Rubin Project and Community Workshop (PCW), which will be held virtually August 9-13. We anticipate that registration will open by the end of May. The Community Forum landing page has been re-designed to align with Rubin Observatory visual identity guidelines, you can admire the new look at community.lsst.org. Rubin Observatory now has a permanent, operational overhead bridge crane (OBC) in the dome; it was certified after successful load testing on May 14th. This 18-ton capacity OBC will be used to continue telescope assembly and system integration during construction, and will facilitate maintenance and repairs throughout Rubin Observatory operations. More details are available in this recent news item. The system integration team has been working on the refrigeration pathfinder, testing the compressors and load heaters, and they plan to turn on the whole system very shortly. The team …

11 May 2021: Project & Science News The Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC) received 38 Cadence Notes, and extends their thanks to all the teams who submitted them. The submitted Cadence Notes are publicly available at this link. The SCOC members will deliver their draft cadence recommendation at the 2021 Project and Community workshop (Aug 9-13). The SCOC also announces a second virtual SCOC workshop, scheduled for Nov 16–17, 2021. It will be similar in format to the first SCOC workshop, with the agenda optimized after discussions at the Project and Community workshop. The SCOC anticipates Nov 23, 2021 as the deadline for submitting any brief written post-workshop input; further details will be provided at the SCOC workshop. Please mark your calendars! As part of the Rubin Observatory Data Management (DM) team's Roadmap to Photometric Redshifts (PZ) for the LSST Object Catalog (DMTN-049), the science community is invited to submit Letters of Recommendation …

27 April 2021: PROJECT & SCIENCE NEWS Save the date, August 9-13, for the 2021 Rubin Project and Community Workshop (PCW), which will be virtual again this year. We look forward to engaging with our colleagues during the event, and we will provide more details as they become available. The Data Management team held its third and final of the first set of photo-z virtual forums on April 8th, as part of its ongoing effort to seek input from the science community regarding which photo-z estimator(s) should be adopted to generate photometric redshifts (photo-z) for the LSST Data Release Object catalog. This first set of forums focused on defining evaluation criteria for photo-z estimators with the community. The next set of forums will begin on Tuesday May 11 at 12pm Pacific, and will focus on working with the community to prepare letters of recommendation for photo-z estimators to use in DRP. The call …

13 April 2021: PROJECT & SCIENCE NEWS Rubin Construction Project leadership has announced an update to the project schedule: Based on currently available information, it’s expected that regular survey operations for Rubin Observatory will not begin before October 2023. We acknowledge that this announcement is disappointing, and we appreciate the patience and flexibility of our community and supporters as we continue to clarify the impact of COVID-19 on our construction effort. Additional details will be provided as they are available. The Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC) would like to issue a reminder of the upcoming April 15th deadline for Cadence Note submission. More information is available on lsst.community.org. A new video, a compilation of on-sky images taken by the Rubin Observatory Auxiliary Telescope (AuxTel) spectrograph during a March observing run, is available in the Gallery. Read more about how these image animations are helping to test and refine AuxTel hardware and software in …

23 March 2021: Project & Science News The first completed filter for the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera has arrived at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The r-band filter was delivered to SLAC on March 12th, marking an exciting milestone for the LSST Camera team. Read more about the event in this news item, and see photos in the Gallery. A new time-lapse video that shows ten years of Rubin Observatory construction in just one minute is now available on our YouTube Channel. The Rubin Observatory Communications team is partnering with the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) during the month of March for a social media campaign highlighting Dr. Vera C. Rubin and Dr. Nancy Grace Roman as part of Women’s History Month. Search #RubinRomanStars to follow the campaign. Operations Updates This year, the Rubin Observatory’s Data Preview 0 (DP0) will make simulated LSST-like data products available in the Rubin Science Platform (RSP) for up …

9 March 2021: Project & Science News The Top-End Assembly (TEA) for the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) was lifted by crane into the observatory dome and installed on the TMA on March 2nd. The task was completed successfully and was a highly celebrated milestone for Rubin Observatory; read the details in this news item, and view photos in the Gallery. There is also a video created from drone footage on our YouTube channel. The LSST Camera i-band and z-band coated filters were shipped from the coating vendor, Materion, in Massachusetts, and received without any issues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where they will be mounted in their frames prior to delivery to SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. These are the second and third filters to be delivered from the vendor. Although we hoped to enjoy the Rubin Observatory Project and Community Workshop (PCW) in person this year, Rubin 2021 will take place virtually during …

23 February 2021: Project & Science News The Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC) has extended the deadline for the Cadence Notes Solicitation Call from March 15th to April 15th, 2021. The change is intended to provide the community additional time to evaluate the new simulations in v1.7 (in particular, the new and improved ‘rolling cadence’ simulations in this release). Additional documentation about all of the available simulations can be found with the v1.7 release announcement. More information about cadence optimization is also available on community.lsst.org (login required), and detailed technical discussions are also taking place on the Slack channel #sims-maf Rubin Observatory Auxiliary Telescope (AuxTel) observing runs continue on Cerro Pachón; the second run of 2021 wrapped up in mid-February. The observing team on the summit continues to benefit from real-time remote support provided by people in four countries, on three different continents. The integration of telescope hardware and software is progressing well, …

9 February 2021: Project & Science News The Rubin Observatory Data Management (DM) team seeks input from the science community regarding which photo-z estimator(s) should be adopted to generate photometric redshifts (photo-z) for the LSST Data Release (DR) Object catalog. As part of DM's photo-z roadmap, which is summarized at this link, all are invited to join one or more of the monthly virtual photo-z drop-in discussions described on community.lsst.org (login required). The deadline for the Cadence Notes Solicitation Call from the Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC) has been updated from March 15th to April 15th, 2021. These Cadence Notes will provide feedback on the existing large set of survey cadence simulations to the SCOC. Additional details are available at this link. The first observing run of the Rubin Observatory Auxiliary Telescope (AuxTel) since the COVID-19 construction shutdown finished successfully; read details about this run and upcoming plans for AuxTel in this recent …