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Introduction
The past month has seen two major construction milestones
Meanwhile, back on the summit, the glass blank for the 8.4-metre primary/tertiary mirror (M1M3) was lifted into its cell. The mirror cell was then moved under the coating chamber to verify the configuration to be used in the coating and, as a final preparation for the coating, the blue protective layer visible in the bottom right photo has been removed.
This month has also seen an operations rehearsal, in which two data streams – one real, from AuxTel, and one simulated, but passed through the ComCam data acquisition system – were transferred from the summit to the US Data Facility in California over the course of three 24-hour cycles. At the USDF, the LSST pipelines were run over the data files, generating the full set of LSST data projects, including alerts from the difference imaging pipeline. These operations were monitored throughout by various Rubin teams, to exercise a number of near-real-time data quality assessment and anomaly detection tools. Further rehearsals are due over the next few months, as the observatory prepares for the first on-sky images.
As noted in the February Newsletter, the Rubin Community Science Team will be running the 2024 Rubin Data Academy on 17, 18, 20 and 21 June. This event is open to all Rubin data rights holders who have registered to be Data Preview 0 (DP0) Delegates (see here for how to do that) and will present an introduction to the DP0.2 and DP0.3 datasets and how to analyse their data products using the Rubin Science Platform (RSP). Sessions will be delivered twice per day to suit attendees in different timezones, with those starting at 16.00 BST likely to be the best for us in the UK. Registration for the Rubin Data Academy remains open, but will close on 16 June.
STOP PRESS: Reflective coating applied to the primary/tertiary mirror
Monday 29 April marked yet another project milestone with the application of the silver coating to Rubin’s 8.4-metre primary/tertiary mirror. This event paves the way for the installation of the glass mirrors on the Simonyi Telescope. It was described as, “an important step towards a transformative new era of scientific advancement,” by Ed Ajhar, NSF Program Director for Rubin Observatory.
Seven years in the making, the one-of-a-kind primary/tertiary mirror is made up of two optical surfaces, each with a different curvature. They are combined into one large structure, which is approximately as wide as a tennis court.
Read the full story
New paper: The morphological mix of dwarf galaxies in the nearby Universe
MNRAS has recently published an article by Ilin Lazar and collaborators (including Sugata Kaviraj and Aaron Watkins) describing the morphological diversity of nearby dwarf galaxies.
The paper, The morphological mix of dwarf galaxies in the nearby Universe, performsa novel, unbiased statistical study of dwarf morphology at z < 0.08. It offers both an unprecedented view of dwarfs using the deep Hyper Suprime-Cam surveys (the precursor to LSST) and a demonstration of the type of science that will be possible in the forthcoming LSST era.Typical dwarfs are too faint to be visible, outside the local neighbourhood, in past surveys like the SDSS. Unbiased studies of dwarfs requires surveys that are both deep and wide. Lazar et al. use a complete, unbiased sample of 257 dwarf (108 M⊙ < M⋆ < 109.5 M⊙) galaxies at z < 0.08 in the COSMOS field, where deep ultraviolet to mid-infrared imaging is available, to study the morphological mix of dwarfs in low-density environments.
The study uses visual inspection of extremely deep optical images from the Hyper Surpime-Cam and their unsharp-masked counterparts to reveal three principal dwarf morphological classes (as shown in the figure). 43 and 45 per cent of dwarfs exhibit the traditional 'early-type' (elliptical/S0) and 'late-type' (spiral) morphologies respectively.
However, 10 per cent populate a 'featureless' class, that lacks both the central light concentration seen in early-types and any spiral structure - this class is missing in the massive-galaxy regime. 14, 27 and 19 per cent of early-type, late-type, and featureless dwarfs respectively show evidence for interactions, which drive around 20 per cent of the overall star formation activity in the dwarf population.
Lazar et al. find that, compared to their massive counterparts, dwarf early-types show a much lower incidence of interactions, are significantly less concentrated and share similar rest-frame colours as dwarf late-types. This suggests that the formation histories of dwarf and massive early-types are different, with dwarf early-types being shaped less by interactions and more by secular processes. The lack of large groups or clusters in COSMOS at z < 0.08, and the fact that the dwarf morphological classes show similar local density, suggests that featureless dwarfs in low-density environments are created via internal baryonic feedback, rather than by environmental processes.
Finally, the study finds that, while interacting dwarfs can be identified using the asymmetry parameter, it is challenging to cleanly separate early and late-type dwarfs using traditional morphological parameters, such as 'CAS', M20, and the Gini coefficient (unlike in the massive-galaxy regime).
Read the open access paper: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/529/1/499/7609698
LSST:UK Project Scientist Recruitment
The LSST:UK Consortium is recruiting a Project Scientist. The successful candidate will replace Stephen Smartt who has decided to step down after almost seven years of service to accept a prestigious Royal Society Research Professorship. This position is funded at a level of 0.2 FTE and is available from July 2024, with an initial appointment running to 31 March 2027.
Further details and instructions for those interested in applying can be found at:
LSST:UK Project Scientist Recruitment (2024)
The deadline for applications is 7 June 2024.
LSST:UK at NAM2024: abstract submission open
Abstract submission is now open for NAM2024 (and will close on 7 June). The conference will be taking place this year in Hull in the week of 14-19 July, and we have a pair of two-hour sessions on the Monday (09.00-11.00 and (15.00-17.00). As in recent years, we intend these to include a mixture of updates for the wider UK astronomical community and contributed talks covering both the UK’s in-kind contributions and preparatory work underway in the Science Collaborations and elsewhere. As this will be the last NAM before on-sky observing begins, the focus will be on preparations for early science with Rubin LSST data. We particularly welcome abstract submissions from early career researchers and will endeavour to select a diverse range of speakers.
Please feel free to contact either of us if you have any questions about these sessions.
The LSST:UK Pool Travel Fund
The LSST:UK Phase C project includes a Pool Travel Fund to support UK-based astronomers to participate in Rubin-related science meetings and activities, to promote UK science priorities within Rubin and to enable better exploitation of the opportunities presented by Rubin to UK astronomers. This follows on from similar funds in Phase A and Phase B, which you may have been aware of.
In Phase C, we have £130k funding, for the four years of the award (April 2023 to March 2027), which is administered by the University of Edinburgh. Anyone based at an LSST:UK Consortium institution (https://www.lsst.ac.uk/governance#partners ) is eligible to apply for support for Rubin-related activities, following the procedure described on the LSST:UK wiki (https://lsst-uk.atlassian.net/l/cp/rpdh3CBz ). Applications can be made at any time and we aim to review and respond to all applications within one month.
We also maintain a page with upcoming meetings that we think will be interesting to the UK Community. This is always accessible on Confluence (https://lsst-uk.atlassian.net/l/cp/UQgW9Hvn ) and topical meetings are summarised in each edition of this newsletter.
For meetings that are likely to be particularly popular, we may choose to issue a specific call for applications to help ensure we can review and prioritise the range of cases fairly. Typically this is done for larger events such as the Rubin Community Workshop or the LSST@Europe meetings. Any such calls are publicised via the LUSC-ANNOUNCE mailing list (https://lsst-uk.atlassian.net/l/cp/1UjUJkVY ) and posted on the Relevant Meetings page.
Funding is awarded at 80% FEC as is the norm for UKRI grants: the remaining 20% of the cost would usually be contributed by the applicant's institution. If in doubt, we recommend you speak to your local finance team to confirm this.
New in Phase C is the opportunity to request funding for hosting meetings. Up to 25% of the Pool Travel Fund has been earmarked by the LSST:UK to support Rubin-focused meetings held in the UK. As for travel applications, more details are available on the wiki page noted above (that is, https://lsst-uk.atlassian.net/l/cp/rpdh3CBz ).
If you have any questions about the Pool Travel Fund, please contact the project management team (mailto:lusc-pm@jiscmail.ac.uk).
Leadership positions held by LSST:UK members
Here is the latest list of significant leadership positions held by members of the LSST:UK consortium in the project and international Science Collaborations. If you are aware of any corrections or additions please contact the LSST:UK Project Managers (George Beckett and Terry Sloan: lusc_pm@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk).
David Alonso
Co-convenor of the DESC External Synergies Working Group; CMB-S4 DESC Liaison; Simons Observatory DESC Liaison; UK representative on DESC Operations Committee; Core Cosmology Library (CCL) Team lead.
David Bacon
Member of DESC Speakers Bureau
Manda Banerji
Member of the Rubin-Euclid DDP Working Group; Galaxies SC member of the Rubin International In-Kind Contribution Evaluation Committee (CEC).
George Beckett
Member of the LSST DESC High-performance computing resources committee; UK representative on Rubin Data Production Leadership Committee.
Rebecca. Bowler
Co-chair of the SED fitting and Photometric Redshifts Working Group in the LSST Galaxies Science Collaboration.
Erminia Calabrese
DESC Advisory Board
Thomas Collett
Member of the Rubin-Euclid DDP Working Group
Victor Debattista
Co-lead of the Galactic Bulge WG in the LSST Stars, Milky Way and Local Volume Science Collaboration
Tassia Ferreira
Member of DESC Collaboration Council; Member of the DESC Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee
Chris Frohmaier
4MOST Extra-Galactic Deputy Project Scientist
Carlos Garcia-Garcia
Co-convenor of the Weak Lensing and Large Scale Structure Working Group
Qianjun Hang
co-lead of the DESC RAIL Topical Team
Joachim Harnois-Déraps
DESC Higher Order Statistics (HOS) topical team co-lead
Peter Hatfield
Co-chair of the Galaxy Environment Working Group in the LSST Galaxies Science Collaboration
Jenny Hiscock
Member of DESC International Resources Committee
Sebastian. Hoenig
Co-Chair of the Variability group in the AGN Science Collaboration; In-kind contribution coordinator for the AGN Science Collaboration; AGN SC alternate member of the International In-Kind Contribution Evaluation Committee.
Sugata Kaviraj
Co-chair of the LSST Galaxies Science Collaboration; Co-chair of the Low Surface Brightness Coordination Group.
Ofer Lahav
Member of DESC Publication Board
Boris Leistedt
Co-convenor of the Weak Lensing and Large Scale Structure (LSS) Working Group
D. Leonard
Co-lead of the DESC Modelling and Combined Probes Analysis Working Group
Chris Lintott
leads the LSST EPO development of Zooniverse as a citizen science platform
James Mullaney
Chair of the Active Galactic Nuclei WG in the LSST Galaxies Science Collaboration
Cyrielle Opitom
Co-lead Active objects WG in the LSST Solar System Science Collaboration
Subir Sarkar
Lead of DESC Project 52 -- Testing the isotropy of the universe
Meg Schwamb
Co-chair of Solar System Science Collaboration
Stephen Smartt
member of the Survey Cadence and Optimisation Committee; DESC Rubin Observatory Project and Facility Operations liaison for Survey Cadence and Optimisation Committee.
Graham Smith
Co-chair of the Strong Gravitational Lensing Science Collaboration (SLSC); Commissioning Liaison for the SLSC.
Sreevarsha Sreejith
Member of the DESC Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee
Mark Sullivan
Co-lead of the DESC Time Domain Analysis Working Group; Member of the DESC Membership Committee; 4MOST/TiDES DESC Liaison.
Aprajita Verma
In-kind Program Coordination Team Lead; Lead of the Galaxies Science Collaboration Strong Lensing Working Group; Member of SLSC Advisory Group; SLSC member of the International In-Kind Contribution Evaluation Committee; Chair of the Software Sub-committee and International Program Coordinator in the Rubin Director’s Office.
Maria Vincenzi
Co-convener of the DESC Time Domain Analysis Working Group
Aaron Watkins
Co-lead of the LSST LSB challenge 1: "How do LSST algorithms do at detecting LSB sources?" ; Co-chair of the low-surface-brightness working group within the LSST Galaxies Science collaboration; Co-chair of the Low Surface Brightness Coordination Group.
Carola Zanoletti
Co-lead of the DESC Beyond wCDM team
Greater insights into stellar streams – latest Rubin science release
The latest science release from Rubin explains how the observatory’s camera will use six different colour filters to detect stellar streams that are around five times more distant than is currently possible.
The article explains how these glittering streams of stars often show telltale signs of disturbance which scientists suspect may be caused by dark matter. The Rubin’s camera will allow these slender trails to be studied in more detail than ever before to uncover their back story. Observing stellar streams allows scientists to probe a different aspect of dark matter because they bear the impact of dark matter’s gravitational effects at small scales.
The artist’s impression, right, shows a myriad of stellar streams in and around the Milky Way. These stretched-out remnants of dwarf galaxies and star clusters showcase gravitational interactions between stars, clumps of dark matter, and the entire galaxy.
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Read the article: Dark matter’s ghostly disruptions of stellar streams revealed – latest Rubin science release |
Meeting report: Rubin ToO 2024
The observing strategy implemented by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's (Rubin's) Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will be the outcome of a significant multi-year community consultation exercise. UK astronomers continue to play key roles in this process through participation in the Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC), prominent roles in Rubin/LSST Science Collaborations, and representation on the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC). With first light approaching, and the cadence of routine LSST survey observations now largely settled, attention recently returned to the 3% of observing time that the SCOC have recommended to Rubin leadership to spend on target of opportunity (ToO) observations.
From 18-20 March 2024, over 100 colleagues from around the world joined a workshop hosted at the University of California Berkeley to build the community consensus on the content of the Rubin/LSST ToO program at Rubin ToO 2024: Envisioning the Vera C. Rubin Observatory LSST Target of Opportunity program.
The team worked round the clock for three days, benefitting from asynchronous working across multiple time-zones in this hybrid meeting. Collaborating in thematically organised groups, workshop participants developed a consensus position on the design of ToO observations for follow-up of gravitational wave sources including candidate gravitationally lensed gravitational waves, high energy neutrino sources, Galactic supernovae, and potentially hazardous asteroids.
The community consensus was documented in a 60-page report that has been submitted to the SCOC, and will be made publicly available. Further community-wide discussion of the ToO program will take place at the Rubin Community Workshop 2024 (July 22-26; SLAC), and feedback from the SCOC is anticipated late-summer this year. In the meantime, further information is available from within the respective Rubin/LSST Science Collaborations, and from Graham Smith (Member, Rubin ToO 2024 Scientific Organising Committee).
News in brief
New paper: Enabling Science from the Rubin Alert Stream with Lasair
A new paper by Roy Williamsand collaborators published on arXiv sheds light on Lasair, the UK community broker for transient alerts from LSST.
Enabling Science from the Rubin Alert Stream with Lasair explains the system's capabilities, how users can achieve their scientific goals, and how Lasair is implemented. As a mature system, Lasair has been processing and serving data from the similarly formatted stream of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) alerts.
Pronounced L-AH-s-uh-r, Lasair means flame or flash in Scots and Irish Gaelic.
Read the open access paper: Enabling Science from the Rubin Alert Stream with Lasair
. Both were the subject of Rubin press releases, so many people will have seen them already, but their significance warrants mentioning them again here. The first was the coating of the primary/tertiary mirror blank to create the beautiful object shown to the right: there is also a video on YouTube, which shows the process in more detail. The second, described in more detail by Eleanor O'Kane below, was the arrival of LSSTCam on Cerro Pachón (bottom right).
The safe arrival of the camera is, of course, a major milestone in itself, but it also marks the removal of the main source of uncertainty in the timeline to the start of survey operations: for some time, events in the final stages of Rubin construction have been expressed w.r.t. to the shipping of LSSTCam, so the next revision of the plan for the early science programme should contain more precise dates for events up to Data Release 1.
The Observatory has recently published a new survey strategy website. Its initial role is primarily to gather together resources relating to the optimisation of the survey strategy – e.g. a summary of the activities of the Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC) and links to the simulations that have underpinned them – but, once operations start, it will also publish survey progress reports. Rubin have also released the 2024 instalment of their A Day in the Life of the Rubin Observatory video series, showing Observatory staff at work on 22 February 2024; it’s great to see so many of them at the summit, whereas earlier instalments were filled with people in front of monitors at institutions around the US.
The LSST Discovery Alliance is currently running another of its calls for funding through its LINCC Incubators programme. This programme “will support teams of researchers to test, apply, or expand early-stage analysis software being developed as a part of LINCC Frameworks using their own exciting scientific investigations with existing surveys or simulated data” and counted Meg Schwamb and Tom J Wilson among its first four awardees: they were supported, respectively, to optimise the LSST Solar System Simulator and to incorporate into the LINCC Framework the cross-matching software being developed as one of the UK’s in-kind contributions. The deadline for brief stage-one proposals is 11:59 pm Pacific time on Monday, 17 June.
Finally, you’ll see at the end of this newsletter links to the LSST:UK accounts on X and BlueSky, recently started by Eleanor O'Kane. Please consider following LSST:UK if you use either of these social media platforms, and reposting items sent by LSST:UK; conversely, Eleanor O'Kane is building up a list of accounts to follow and is happy to repost relevant items.
Positive response to the Introduction to the RSP sessions
Over the course of February, March and April 2024, James Mullaney delivered ten in-person and one online Introduction to the Rubin Science Platform (RSP) sessions. The in-person sessions took place at different locations around the UK, ranging from as far south as Portsmouth and Surrey, all the way north to Durham and Edinburgh, and as westward as Belfast! Thanks to all those who helped with local organisation – the sessions couldn’t have gone ahead without you!
Each session started off with a presentation to introduce attendees to the project and the UK’s involvement, and to provide guidance on how to apply to obtain Principal Investigator or Junior Associate status within LSST:UK. This was followed by three roughly hour-long tutorials that used Jupyter Notebooks to demonstrate how to connect to a Data Access Center and retrieve and analyse Data Preview 0.2 data. All the material used during the sessions are available via the Introduction to the RSP website.
In total, over 80 people attended either an in-person or online event, which far outstripped even our most optimistic expectations and underlines how much the UK astronomical community is looking forward to Rubin first light and the subsequent data releases. Approximately a third (31%) of attendees self-identified as non-male. The feedback from sessions was overwhelmingly positive (some selected comments are listed below), but one thing that was often mentioned and that we’ve heard loud and clear is that people want more hands-on sessions so they too can retrieve and analyse data with someone on-hand to provide guidance. Plans are already being made into how we will be able to accommodate more hands-on sessions, as well as running some more Introductory sessions for those who couldn’t come to any of this year’s sessions and, of course, new arrivals to the field. New sessions – including a planned pre-recorded introductory one – will be announced via newsletter, LUSC-announce email, and your institute’s LSST:UK board member.
As promised, I’ll leave you with just a few of the positive comments we received following the sessions (if only to tempt others to attend future sessions!):
Great session, well described and easy to understand. Looking forward to getting to play with the data.
Thanks for the very useful and informative session - I appreciated your enthusiasm and knowledge of the RSP :). As someone who has used the RSP a small amount already, it was very useful to put things I'd previously used (like the butler) into context.
This was a really useful session, and have a great overview of how we can access Rubin data. Future hacking style workshops will be great in the future!
Everything was really well explained and the thought process was very clearly laid out :)
Thanks for a great introduction to the RSP. I learned a lot and now feel that accessing and using the data is within reach for me and my colleagues.
Lasair: The Movie
Shipping the largest camera ever built for astrophysics
How do you move a $168 million, car-sized camera from California to a Chilean mountaintop? That was the challenge for the LSST Camera team.
The successful arrival of the LSST Camera to Cerro Pachón on 16 May 2024 means that the final major component of Rubin’s Simonyi Survey Telescope is now on site. The meticulously-prepared shipping plan was designed to reduce potential risk to the camera. Before shipping, the camera was mounted on a custom shipping frame and wrapped in plastic electrostatic discharge material to protect it from moisture. An overhead crane was used to instal the camera – in its frame – in a 6-metre container that was insulated to prevent overheating. Once installed, the frame was securely clamped to the container’s metal floor struts.
Data loggers monitored temperature, humidity, vibration, and accelerations throughout the trip. Additionally, a GPS tracking system allowed the team to pinpoint the camera’s location at any point on the journey. Thanks to a 2021 dress rehearsal, when data loggers were used in the shipping of the camera mass simulator to Chile, the team were aware of potential issues.
Two LSST Camera team members accompanied the camera on its 10-hour flight from San Francisco to Arturo Merino Benítez Airport in Santiago. Upon landing, a convoy of nine vehicles travelled to the base of Cerro Pachón. The final 21.7 mile drive along winding dirt roads from the base to the summit took five hours.
Upon its arrival at the observatory building, the camera was unloaded and moved into Rubin’s white room. Data collected by the data loggers confirmed that the camera had not encountered any unexpected stresses.
The LSST Camera is due to undergo several months of testing in the observatory’s white room. Following this, it will be installed on the telescope along with Rubin’s newly-coated 8.4-meter primary mirror and 3.4-metre secondary mirror.
Block agenda for Rubin Community workshop now online
Forthcoming meetings of interest
Dates, locations and links… The current list of forthcoming meetings is always available on the Relevant Meetings page. You may also wish to check information held on the LSST organisation website LSST-organised events and the LSST Corporation website.
Dates | Meeting Title / Event | Meeting Website/ Contact | Meeting location / venue |
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20/May/24-23/May/24
Rare Gems in Big Data. The discovery potential of large astrophysical surveys: science opportunities, tools, and techniques
https://mailchi.mp/d8d4daa3ed0a/first-announcement-rare-gems-in-big-data?e=5176cbbd93
USA | Tucson, AZ
08/Jul/24-12/Jul/24 | DESC Collaboration Meeting | Switzerland | ETZ Zurich | |
14/Jul/24 - 19/Jul/24 | RAS National Astronomy Meeting 2024 | Abstract submission closes 3 June. | Hull |
22/Jul/24-25/Jul/24 | Catching supermassive black holes with Rubin-LSST: Towards novel insights and discoveries into AGN science | https://indico.ict.inaf.it/event/2784/ Registration is now open. |
Italy | Turin | |
22/Jul/24-26/Jul/24 | Rubin Community Workshop |
The call for session suggestions and talk/poster abstracts is 4 April.
Email questions about the meeting to pmo.rubin@noirlab.edu.
2024 | In-person registration deadline is 21 June or when there are 250 attendees. | USA | SLAC, California (hybrid) | |
16/Sep/24—20/Sep/24 | LSST@Europe6 | Spain | Island of La Palma |
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Members of the Consortium (not in receipt of travel funding through one of the Science Centre grants) may apply for travel support for meetings of this kind via the LSST:UK Pool Travel Fund. Details are available at Forthcoming LSST-related Meetings |
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If you have significant news or announcements that are directly relevant to LSST:UK and would like to share them in a future newsletter, contact Eleanor O'Kane (email eokane@roe.ac.uk) |
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