• 1 Introduction
• 2 Rubin alerts and broker workshop: 14-15 January 2025, Oxford
• 3 Vera C. Rubin Observatory at CHEP
• 4 Meeting report: Black Holes and AGN in the era of the Event Horizon Telescope, JWST and the Rubin Observatory
• 5 Help LSST:UK to engage more people with science and technology research
• 6 Two ways to enhance your communications skills
  • 6.1 Watch: An introduction to science communication
  • 6.2 Attend: Seminar on understanding the media
• 7 Follow LSST:UK on LinkedIn
• 8 Three Research Software Engineer positions in survey astronomy at Edinburgh
• 9 Forthcoming meetings of interest

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Introduction

The photos to the right shows something for which we have all waited a long time: on-sky observations being undertaken with the Simonyi Survey Telescope. For the moment, the data are being taken by ComCam, not LSSTCam, but the weekly on-sky commissioning updates being provided through the community.lsst.org site have made wonderful reading. Most of the effort so far has concentrated on the active optics system, which is already delivering images with sub-arcsecond FWHM PSFs, despite not all its degrees of freedom being in operation yet. Once the delivered image quality had stabilised, it became possible to take repeated images of fields in the Extended Chandra Deep Field South, which is one of the LSST Deep Drilling Fields, and to do so in multiple filters over the course of the lunation, allowing more of the data processing pipeline modes to be exercised with on-sky data - including the production of alerts from difference imaging.

The Rubin Science Assembly on 14 November focussed on recent simulations by Troxel et al (2023) of 20 sq. deg. of the same model universe used to produce Data Preview 0 (DP0) as it would have been seen by the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The simulated Roman data products are now available to DP0 Delegates through the Rubin Science Platform, so that it is possible to assess what can be done with the complementary data to be produced by these two missions.

Closer to home, and with an eye on the imminent opening of the 2025 STFC Small Awards calls for Astronomy Observation and Theory and for Solar and Planetary Studies, we have produced a wiki page of information for grant applicants. This is intended to provide support for those drafting applications for exploitation grants to analyse Rubin LSST data. It will be kept updated as, for example, the Rubin schedule progresses, and please let @Graham Smith or myself know if there is further information that you think we should include on that page.

In last month’s Newsletter, @Eleanor O'Kane introduced a new initiative with which we would like to highlight the wide range of people and roles involved in LSST:UK. @Eleanor O'Kane writes more about this below, and I strongly encourage everyone to spare the ~15 mins needed to answer the interview questions on her webform, which I found both fun and thought-provoking.

Finally, this is the 50th of these Newsletters, which seems like a convenient milestone for asking you, the audience, for your comments about them. What is good about them?…what could be better?…and what have we missed completely so far? Please send any feedback on the content and format of these Newsletters to @Eleanor O'Kane (eokane@roe.ac.uk) or myself (rgm@roe.ac.uk): all feedback welcome!

 

Open

(Credit: RubinObs/NSF/DOE/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/H. Stockebrand)

 

 

Rubin alerts and broker workshop: 14-15 January 2025, Oxford

To coincide with a visit by Eric Bellm from the Rubin Data Management team, the Lasair team is hosting a workshop on 14-15 January 2025 in Oxford. On the agenda will be the latest news on LSST alerts and broker provision.

Eric leads the team at the University of Washington that are building the real-time data processing pipelines for the Rubin Observatory. He is the Alert Production Science lead and is also the Survey Scientist for the Zwicky Transient Facility. With ComCam observing the sky on the Simonyi telescope now, and LSSTCam to come in early 2025, this LSST:UK community workshop will discuss the latest updates from the Rubin Data Management team. This will inform our final development stage for the Lasair broker as we approach the start of LSST alerts in 2025.

We encourage in-person attendance at the event to discuss what we can jointly achieve between the Rubin Alert Production team and the brokers. We will make provision for hybrid attendance. Personnel from other brokers are very welcome to attend, although our timing will be most suited to European time zones (two mornings GMT).

On behalf of the Lasair Team, I look forward to seeing you in Oxford as excitement builds for the start of LSST alerts in 2025.

@Stephen Smartt

Vera C. Rubin Observatory at CHEP

LSST:UK team member Matt Doidge reports on the recent Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP).

The 27th CHEP Conference, held at the end of October in the lovely city of Krakow, hosted a number of contributions from the Rubin Community. You may wonder why astronomy collaboration is presenting at a particle physics conference, with the days of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council long behind us. In fact, many of the tools Rubin is utilising for data movement and the Data Release Processing (DRP) activities originate from the particle physics community, particularly the Large Hadron Collider experiments such as ATLAS. Feeding back both stories of success and details of challenges encourages cross-pollination among communities, and strengthens the development of these techniques and solutions.

Fabio, our colleague from IN2P3, described the preparation for DRP Multi-Site Processing with contributions from members of the UK Data Facility (UKDF). He also gave an account of the data movement model for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, describing the tools used to manage and monitor the data flows across the globe - from Chile to California and beyond. Finally our colleagues from SLAC presented a solution for backing up the data produced from the summit.

LSST:UK members @Roger William Lewis Jones and I ( from Lancaster) delivered the more conventional (for CHEP) presentations, although Roger's Geometry Simplification Methods for Virtual Reality Applications could be described as beyond convention. For the programmers, I would recommend the plenary talk on the take up of the relatively young Julia programming language in High Energy Physics.

@Matt Doidge

Meeting report: Black Holes and AGN in the era of the Event Horizon Telescope, JWST and the Rubin Observatory

In October, Derek Ward-Thompson (University of Central Lancashire) and James Mullaney (University of Sheffield) co-organised a Royal Astronomical Society Specialist Discussion Meeting focussing on Black Holes and AGN in the era of the Event Horizon Telescope, JWST, and the Rubin Observatory.

A number of world-leading experts in Black Hole and AGN science gave presentations about their recent research using data from JWST and the Event Horizon Telescope; they also provided tantalising insights into what we should expect from the Rubin Observatory.

Matthew Temple (University of Durham) kicked-off the Rubin session with a comprehensive description of the survey and what it will deliver in terms of the expected numbers of detected AGN (300 million!!), and the challenges we face in terms of identifying them and discriminating them from other types of object. This was followed-up by a fascinating talk by Katherine Kauma (University of Cambridge) that covered the importance of identifying luminous, high-redshift AGN within the LSST and how this can be achieved by the spectral energy density analysis that they have been developing, which also delivers robust photometric redshifts.

Finally, the Rubin discussion was concluded by a highly thought-provoking talk by Andy Lawrence (University of Edinburgh), that challenged many of our existing preconceptions of AGN variability and the oft-used ‘damped random walk’ models used to describe it. All in all, the session gave an excellent glimpse into the exciting things we’ll discover about Black Holes and AGN once Rubin delivers the LSST.

@James Mullaney

Help LSST:UK to engage more people with science and technology research

Take part in our forthcoming series of interviews to highlight people working across all areas of the project.

By telling us about your passions and pathways into LSST:UK, you can help us show how astronomy is an exciting and rewarding subject that welcomes people with varying backgrounds, talents and interests. These interviews will be published in this newsletter and on the LSST:UK website when it relaunches for 2025. We will also use snippets on our social media channels.

Everyone is encouraged to participate. I will come back to you to let you know when your interview is planned to go live, to run the text past you for final approval and to request a headshot or other image relating to you and your work. If you have any questions, get in touch with Eleanor O’Kane, LSST:UK Communications Officer: eokane@roe.ac.uk

@Eleanor O'Kane

Two ways to enhance your communications skills

Watch: An introduction to science communication

Struggling to prioritise information for your presentation? Want to understand what makes a good science story? All is revealed in our new training video.

We launched our first LSST:UK communications training earlier in this month with a short online session covering the basics of communication. Aimed at those with little or no previous communications experience, the 45-minute video of the session is now available for anyone who wants to learn how to better engage others in their work. The video includes:

• How to prioritise your messages

• Working with your institutional press team

• How preprints can affect your media push

• Finding the best communications platform for you

Watch / download the video: An introduction to science communication

Attend: Seminar on understanding the media

Launched by the Science Media Centre to encourage scientists to engage with the media, Introduction to News Media takes place on 5 February 2025 in London The seminar is for scientists from any institution (postdoctoral level or professional equivalent and above) who have little or no experience with the media. According to the organisers, it aims to benefit those who are “media shy, feel negatively about engaging with journalists or are downright scared that they will get it wrong.” Senior scientists are particularly welcome.

The session will highlight how researchers are engaging with the media to improve the quality of science news and explain how to work with your institutional press team. Participants will hear from scientists who have worked with the media about their experiences and have a chance to question national science journalists about what they are seeking when they work with researchers.

Introduction to the News Media takes place in person on Wednesday 5 February at King’s College London (Denmark Hill Campus) from 13:30 - 17:30, followed by a drinks reception.

Places are limited; anyone wishing to attend should register interest here [forms.office.com].

@Eleanor O'Kane

Three Research Software Engineer positions in survey astronomy at Edinburgh

The Wide-Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) in Edinburgh is recruiting two Research Software Engineers (RSEs), plus a Senior RSE, to work on cloud-based science platforms for survey astronomy. The two Research Software Engineer (RSE) posts – one for Gaia and one for Rubin LSST – will focus on the development and maintenance of existing science platforms for the two surveys, while the Senior RSE position has a service delivery responsibility, ensuring smooth operation of the UK’s LSST Independent Data Access Centre.

All three posts are full-time (35 hours per week); however, we are open to considering part-time or flexible working patterns. The posts available from now to 31 December 2026, with the possibility of extension dependent on continuing funding streams. We are open to considering requests for hybrid working (on a non-contractual basis) that combines a mix of remote and regular on-campus working, and would particularly welcome applications from those who would enhance the diversity of the WFAU team.

Full details and a link to the application portal can be found here and I would be very happy to answer any informal questions about these posts. The deadline for applications is 6 January 2025.

@Bob Mann

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.