Introduction
The past month has seen two major construction milestones. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
08/Jul/24-12/Jul/24 | DESC Collaboration Meeting | Switzerland | ETZ Zurich | |
14/Jul/24 - 19/Jul/24 | RAS National Astronomy Meeting 2024 | 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. Abstract submission deadline is 12 April. | Italy | Turin |
22/Jul/24-26/Jul/24 | Rubin Community Workshop | More details about the meeting will be available once the meeting website is set up and registration opens. | USA | SLAC, California (hybrid) |
16/Sep/24—20/Sep/24 | LSST@Europe6 | Spain | Island of La Palma |
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
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)