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This page is intended to provide support for UK researchers planning applications for science exploitation grants to analyse Rubin LSST data. It will be continually updated - the most recent update was on 11/OCT/2024 February 6th, 2025 - and any grant applicants not finding here information that they need for their applications are welcome encouraged to contact the LSST:UK Project Leader (Bob Mann ) or Project Scientist (Graham Smith ).

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  • A collection of general background information about the Rubin LSST can be found at https://www.lsst.org/scientists. Information about the survey strategy can be found at https://survey-strategy.lsst.io/ and there is a webpage of

  • This webpage contains key numbers for the LSST system and survey, while updated versions of some of those numbers (e.g., expected point source limiting depths in the six bands) can be found in Table 2 of the Bianco et al (2022)cadence optimisation paper.

  • Information about the survey strategy can be found at https://survey-strategy.lsst.io/, including access to the reports of the Survey Cadence and Optimisation Committee, the latest of which finalised the strategy for Y1 of the survey.

  • A set of slides providing further background information about the Rubin LSST and about UK involvement in it can be found linked from Getting started with the Rubin Observatory and LSST:UK.

  • The Rubin Observatory maintain a citable document on Zenodo to support grant applicants. It includes a summary description of LSST data products, releases, tools for supporting analysis, etc. The most detailed reference for the Rubin data products is the Data Product Definition Document (DPDD). Useful information regarding the first public release of LSSTCam alerts is also available in https://rtn-061.lsst.io/.

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The Construction Project Status page linked above presents a timeline for key events in early operations w.r.t. the final stages of the construction project, including the anticipated date of System First Light (also referred to as Rubin First Light, and currently ) as no sooner than 04-Jul-2025, beginning of Science Verification observations no sooner than 15-Aug-2025, and Operations Readiness Review no sooner than 1918-JunSep-2025, . These dates are as per their October the Construction Project Status update on December 10, 2024 update), .

The current understanding of when data will be available to data rights holders is based on a synthesis of information that is available from several sources, and can be summarised as follows:

  • Data Preview 1: contains a subset of early will contain commissioning data , i.e. from ComCam, and provisionally LSSTCam; released to data rights holders 2-3 months after System First Light - i.e., no sooner than August June/July 2025

  • [LSST Survey Start: 4-7 months after System Rubin First Light - i.e., no sooner than October November 2025]

  • Data Preview 2: contains Science Verification data obtained with LSSTCam; released to data rights holders no sooner than 6 months after survey starts - i.e., no sooner than May 2026

  • Data Release 1: contains first six months of survey data; released to data rights holders no sooner than 12 months after LSST Survey Start - i.e., no sooner than October November 2026

Data Release 2 is expected six months after Data Release 1 (i.e., no sooner than late Spring May 2027), and subsequent data releases are expected annually thereafter.

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  • prompt data products include:

    • alerts available to the world via brokers (<=120sec after readout during Y1);

    • catalogs based on alerts available to data rights holders via prompt products database (<=24hrs after readout);

    • nightly pixel data available to data rights holders via Rubin Science Platform (>=80 hours after readout).

  • “the most likely timescale for the first alerts are during science validation surveys”; “we do not expect to send alerts from ComCam data”. [indeed, ComCam-based alerts did not happen.]