Blogs

April 27, 2022 - Washing and drying an 8.4-meter mirror is no simple task, but with specialized equipment and procedures that are now being developed, the team on the summit will be able to keep both of Rubin Observatory’s mirrors clean and optimally reflective throughout the ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). This video shows the washing station in action with the mirror surrogate, as the team works on defining the washing and drying parameters that will be used to clean the real Primary/Tertiary Mirror (M1M3) in the future. 

April 12, 2022 - The Rubin Observatory dome has a new look, after the team from EIE and the Chilean contractor SyR applied natural mill-finished aluminum sheeting to the dome’s exterior over the last several months. No longer white, the dome’s snazzy reflective surface appears silver, or sometimes blue as it reflects the sky.

How do you design an automated astronomical survey that enables as much science as possible? For the past few years, the Rubin Observatory team has worked closely with the scientific community to focus on this question, and now Rubin Observatory is in the final stages of defining the initial survey strategy for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).

**Versión en Español más abajo**

Dear Colleagues,

Since my appointment as Director of Rubin Construction I’ve been working with the team to set up further appointments in the Director’s office (pending NSF approval). 

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to communicate to you all that Matt Mountain (AURA President) has announced that Željko Ivezić will assume the role of Director of Rubin Observatory Construction upon my departure from the Project on January 3, 2022. 

November 12, 2021 - The LSST Camera team at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory celebrated a very cold day at the beginning of November—not because of the weather, but because both of the systems that keep the LSST Camera cool were running successfully together for the first time since January 2021.

October 19, 2021 - The last of the six Rubin Observatory LSST Camera filters arrived at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in September, an event that marked the completion of the major camera components and the end of years of work by engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), who designed and managed the fabrication of the camera’s lenses and filters. 

October 1, 2021 - Dynamic things are happening on the summit of Cerro Pachón; the era of static components is ending, and the telescope is on the move! Testing of the hydrostatic bearing system of the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) was successfully conducted in mid-September—during this process the TMA was manually rotated in azimuth and elevation for the first time since testing at the Asturfeito factory in Spain.