• 1 Introduction
• 2 Rubin Multi-site Processing Collaboration Workshop
• 3 From Scotland’s dark skies to the high peaks of Arizona
• 4 Junior Associates Network update
• 5 LSST:UK communications news
• 6 Forthcoming meetings of interest

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Introduction

The past month has seen an unusual number of noteworthy events. The first of these, just missing our June Newsletter, was the announcement on 30 June that the 10-year LSST had started the previous night. Accompanying that much-awaited announcement was the pretty picture to the right, plus, more importantly, a report summarising the progress made during the Early Operations System Optimization phase that had allowed the decision to be made to start the LSST, along with a plan for work over the next year or so to improve the image quality so that it can consistently meet all specifications from the LSST System Science Requirements Document. Needless to say, this is a major milestone for the project, made possible by the dedicated efforts of hundreds of people over more than a decade, but as the Image Quality Improvement Plan makes clear, there is significant further work to be done before the facility can reach routine LSST operations.

Unfortunately, the survey start was followed, barely two weeks later, by what Bob Blum described in his talk in our NAM session, as the worst winter storm to strike that region of Chile in more than 50 years. NOIRLab evacuated all staff from Cerro Pachon and Cerro Tololo early, leaving critical instrumentation in a safe state prior to evacuation, but it will, inevitably, take some time for summit operations to start up again; access roads were washed out during the storm, and our thoughts are with all the residents of the region who are dealing with power and water problems resulting from the storm.

Closer to home, the main news concerned the outcome of the STFC PPAN Prioritisation Exercise, which left us with a reduction of 20% in our funding for the three years from 1 April 2027, relative to a baseline from Financial Year 2024/25. Needless to say, a 20% cut is serious and will prevent us from delivering all our agreed in-kind contributions to Rubin, but our Exec Group had developed a plan for a 20% descope that would minimise the impact on our staff and on the UK community’s future science with LSST data, so the consequences for our programme should be less severe than the headline figure of 20% might imply. We will, however, only know our position once STFC’s Project Peer Review Panel has evaluated a proposal that we shall be invited to submit in the next few months.

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A 1.7 Gigapixel image of a region of the constellation Lupus.
(Credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA)

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DP2 sky coverage and i-band limiting depth maps from https://dp2.lsst.io/overview/observations.html

 

This month has also seen the release of Early Data Preview 2, comprising catalogues and deep co-add images from observations taken with LSSTCam between April 2025 and January 2026. The coverage map above shows that DP2 includes data from about 3000 sq deg, but the depth and filter coverage vary greatly across that region, since, of course, these observations were taken, primarily, for science validation reasons and were not intended to comprise a homogeneous survey. Further DP2 data products - e.g., Processed Visit Images and difference images - will be released between October and December, so the preview should be complete by the end of the calendar year. DP2 is roughly ~1% the size of the full LSST, so it is a significant survey dataset in its own right, as well as providing an important preparatory step towards science with Data Release 1, which is now expected to take place in mid-2028.

We hope to hear about early results from DP2 in an RAS Specialist Discussion meeting entitled “Early Science with the Rubin LSST” that will be held on 12 February 2027. There will be more information about that, in due course, but please mark that date in your diaries.

Finally, a reminder that self-nominations for new members of the Rubin Users Committee are due on 7 August, and we strongly encourage UK data rights holder to put themselves forward. The UC is meant to represent the full range of science interests and career stages within the LSST community, and its charge document notes that at least one of its members should be from the UK, which is a condition that has not been met for a while.

@Bob Mann

Rubin Multi-site Processing Collaboration Workshop

To prepare LSST’s science-ready data products (that is, each Data Release) requires more computing power and storage capacity than can easily be furnished by a single institution. Because of this, the preparation of LSST science-ready products – Data Release Processing – is shared between three facilities in the United States (SLAC, California), France (CC-IN2P3, Lyon), and in the UK (GridPP, Lancaster and RAL).

While the LSST has only recently started, multi-site processing has been on-going for some time – providing a testing platform for Pipeline improvements and supporting the preparation of LSST Data Previews. Multi-site processing has matured a lot over the last year or so, but – as is expected at this stage – there are still many teething problems and operations are not as slick and automated as the Rubin team would like.

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To this end, LSST:UK hosted a Data Management Team meeting in Edinburgh in June to review the status of multi-site processing and agree changes and improvements that will be needed in advance of the start of Data Release 1 processing (around one year from now).

During a three-day meeting, involving staff from France, UK, and USA, with representation from campaign management, data curation, pipeline development, and science validation activities, we agreed a programme of technical work for the coming year, to make sure we are fully ready for DR1. Some of the highlights include:

·      Correct infrastructure sizing and procurement for Data Release 1.

·      Optimisation of how the outputs from the three facilities are assembled into a coherent release.

·      Enhanced monitoring to help the campaign-management team to better track DRP progress and spot problems earlier.

·      Progress on planning for distribution of data-release products to Data Access Centres.

We also covered more mundane, though equally important, tasks like how to quickly delete Petabytes of working calculations once they are no longer needed (a surprisingly challenging problem) and how to find and eliminate bottlenecks as the scale of processing grows with each new survey year.

There was also time to look to the future, considering the impact that AI might have on streamlining processing and how contemporary initiatives such as the American Science Cloud might present new opportunities for enhanced science.

All in all it was a very successful meeting, enhanced by the beautiful setting of Edinburgh in early Summer. Everyone is very excited that the Survey has begun. Not only is this a big milestone for the many astronomers who have ambitious plans for LSST: those involved in the technology that underpins LSST are primed and ready for the imminent data deluge as we capture the cosmos!

@George Beckett

From Scotland’s dark skies to the high peaks of Arizona

A physics teacher from Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway, Europe’s first Dark Sky Town, recently joined a cohort of North American educators to learn how to bring the wonders of Rubin discovery into the classroom.

Sibyl Kadel, a physics teacher at Moffat Academy, gained an LSST:UK sponsored place at the 2026 Rubin Summer Stars Academy, which took place from 13-17 July at NSF NOIRLab Headquarters, with special sessions held at NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory and the Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab.

Participants were welcomed by Rubin Director of Operations Bob Blum and NoirLab Director Patrick McCarthy, before learning more about NOIRLab, Rubin Observatory, and the Rubin Education Program. The week included a tour of the facilities at Kitt Peak, including the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope, the WIYN Telescope and Taṣogida Ki, a science centre inside the recently retired McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope. Participants also learned about the traditional owners of the site, the Tohono Oʼodham Nation, and their long history of reading the skies. Kitt Peak is located at highest point in the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert; it is home to one of the largest collections of astronomical instruments in the northern hemisphere.

One highlight for Sibyl was a tour of the Rubin Control Room.  “It was great to meet people who are involved in Rubin and learn about their different roles,” she said. “I remember giving a talk on dark matter when I was at university, so it was exciting to meet people who are putting theory into practice. Throughout the week, there was a real emphasis on the breadth of expertise needed for a project like Rubin, and how STEAM careers can be available to people with a wide range of skills and knowledge.”

The participants had a chance to get to grips with the open-access classroom tools or 'Investigations' developed by the Rubin Education Program; these cover a range of topics including Exploding Stars, Hazardous Asteroids and Stellar Safari. Additional workshops addressed wider educational themes, such as how more people can be encouraged to pursue STEAM careers, including pathways for those without advanced degrees.

Sibyl, who studied astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, teaches students from years P7 to S6 (ages 10 to 18). “I can see how I will use the materials in my classroom. They feel really accessible and give students a chance to use real data and learn in a visual way.

“It’s so impressive that the data has been made public so that anyone can use it. It’s incredible that – given all the work that’s gone into creating Rubin – it’s being given back to humanity. It fills me with hope and awe.”

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Sibyl (far left) joined North American science teachers for the Rubin Summer Stars Academy 2026.
(Credit: NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA)

 

@Eleanor O'Kane

Junior Associates Network update

Here are a few short updates from the LSST:UK Junior Associates Network (JAN) – a network organised by junior associates for junior associates.

The JAN lunchtime session at NAM

It was great to see so many people at the JAN lunchtime session at this year’s National Astronomy Meeting! A total of 22 people took time out of their lunch break to engage with the session, and we hope it was as productive for you as it was for us. @James Robinson kicked things off with an informal discussion about Data Preview 2 (DP2) and its contents, followed by an introduction to the JAN delivered by @Matthew Temple and @Clara Pennock.

The rest of the session was then dedicated to ice breaking, with JAs encouraged to discuss with people they had not met before. These discussions covered a range of topics, including (but not limited to): how to get started with LSST as a newcomer, how to use the Rubin Science Platform, and further discussion about DP2.

We hope all those who attended found the session worthwhile! From the side of the JAN Organising Committee, we certainly found it useful to hear your thoughts regarding the JAN and Rubin in general.

Notes and slides from the session can be found here on the JAN Wiki.  

Upcoming workshop: EDP2 tutorial

With the recent release of Early Data Preview 2 (EDP2), our Community Scientists @James Robinson and @Garreth Martin have kindly agreed to lead an online tutorial on accessing these data through the Rubin Science Platform. This tutorial will happen in the second half of August; further details and Zoom credentials will follow via email. (If you are not on the JAN mailing list, then you can sign up here.) If you cannot make it but would like to, then don’t worry - we will be having more DP2-related tutorials in the Autumn if there is enough interest.

JAN logo design competition

We have decided that it is about time the JAN had its own official logo, and we want members of the JAN to be involved in the process. We will therefore be holding a logo design competition, wherein you can submit your own entries and/or vote for your favourite submissions by your peers. Our current provisional logo, designed by the JAN’s co-chair @Clara Pennock , can be found below - this is the target to beat! Further details on how to submit your entries and vote for others will follow soon via email. In the meantime, get thinking of design ideas!

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The current provisional logo for the JAN, designed by our co-chair Clara Pennock.

Additional information

More information on the JAN can be found on the Wiki, including:

• a sign-up form for the JAN mailing list

• details of the various Slack channels available to JAs in the LSST:UK workspace

• minutes and slides from the meetings of the JAN leadership team

• information about the JAN Organising Committee and how to get involved

• an anonymous form for if you have any feedback regarding how the JAN is run

• some useful links related to Rubin/LSST.

@Thomas Cornish, Steve Ardern, @Garreth Martin, @Clara Pennock, Andres Ponte Perez, @James Robinson, @Matthew Temple, @Andrew Wilson, @Tom J Wilson

LSST:UK communications news

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.