Blogs

October 9, 2015 - The LSST Data Management team held a successful Boot Camp earlier this week to introduce new hires and interested users to DM processes and the Science Pipelines stack.  Boot Camp took place at three locations, connected by Blue Jeans videoconferencing.   Each day involved a few hours of lectures by subject experts followed by a hands-on tutorial with a local instructor.  The agenda and presentations can be found on the LSST Community Forum (community.lsst.org); video recordings of lectures will be posted there as well after some editing.  Participants at each site included (L-R):

October 2, 2015 - Hola from Madrid! As part of the design/build process, a nine-person team from LSST traveled to Spain for the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) Preliminary Design Review. This week-long event concluded with prime contractor Empresarios Agrupados receiving approval to go ahead with long lead-time procurements and to proceed to Final Design. Beginning in mid-2016 the TMA will be fabricated and tested at the Asturfeito facility in the Aviles Port region of northern Spain with integration scheduled for 2018 on Cerro Pachón.

October 2, 2015 - We are pleased to announce the promotion of Sandra Ortiz to the position of Executive Assistant to the Directorate. In this role Sandra will provide executive level support for the LSSTPO Directorate and Project Management Office
Having been with LSST since June 2013, Sandra brings a diverse set of skills and wealth of experience with her into this role. Her track record of outstanding customer service, meticulous scheduling, and multi-tasking will be an invaluable asset to our strategic and tactical objectives regarding administrative matters at the Tucson Headquarters. Congratulations Sandra!

September 25, 2015 - At the invitation of John Grunsfeld, the Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, Steve, Kahn, Zeljko Ivezic, and Mario Juric (shown L-R in the accompanying image) made a visit to NASA Headquarters in Washington to discuss LSST’s capabilities for near earth object (NEO) detection and orbit characterization. Matt Mountain and Heidi Hammel from AURA were also in attendance. Mario showed that while there remain some uncertainties regarding “false positives” that may arise in our image differencing algorithms, existing experience with DECam makes it very likely that LSST will detect ~ 70% of NEOs down to 140 m in size, and with some optimization of our cadence strategy, can increase the fraction to 85% or higher.

September 18th is Chilean Independence Day as on this day in 1810 Chile broke from Spanish rule. The LSST Project Office took the opportunity to join with our Chilean co-workers and celebrated with empanadas, cake, and a lesson in Chilean slang. Thanks to Telescope & Site Optics Engineer Constanza Araujo for initiating the idea and all who helped organize the fun, team-building event. We’ll all be looking for chances to show off our new language skills! The Independence celebration added a positive note to a difficult week for our Chilean colleagues in the aftermath of a strong earthquake centered 150km from La Serena.

The LSST Data Management team continued to grow during the first year of the construction project. In recent months, four team members joined the Tucson-based Science Quality and Reliability Engineering (SQuaRE) group and three others came on board at DM partner institutions SLAC, Princeton University, and University of Washington. Contact information for all seven new team members can be found in the LSST Contacts Database. Read more after the jump.

August 28, 2015 - As the Chilean winter snow melts, the LSST facility on Cerro Pachón begins to emerge above the ground level - rebar posts extend from the concrete footings of the support columns of the observatory building. The summit construction is progressing to be ready for the initial integration with the dome in January 2017 and be fully completed by January 2018. The facility will provide 3,000 square meters of maintenance and support space in a footprint that extends from 17 meters below the summit platform to 38 meters above the summit to the top of the dome.

The LSST achieved a significant milestone August 4-6, 2015, with the Camera passing a critical independent review that evaluated the project's readiness for seeking approval of Critical Decision (CD)-3, Approve Start of Construction. The review committee found the LSST Camera to meet all requirements and recommended immediate CD-3 approval. Specifically the committee found the project team to be "expert and very capable. The team is well managed and can effectively deliver on the construction phase tasks, manage the procurements, interfaces, and risks.

After many months of effort, new LSST web pages went live on July 28 at www.lsst.org. This new web presence offers a more modern look that is consistent across the many audiences served by the site, including the Public and Scientists, Project Team, and LSST Corporation. The site architecture allows for easier updates with the responsibility for keeping content current distributed across a group of subject-specific content editors. Using a responsive Drupal theme, the website is designed to scale with different screen sizes on multiple platforms and browsers. Currently, mobile devices account for about 15% of lsst.org visits; however, we expect that number to continue to grow.

Blue Jeans offers an app for both iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android devices. The app includes the ability to view and share HD content.  Calls are delivered with SIP SRTP encryption.  Please connect to a wi-fi network for best quality.  When using the Blue Jeans app, you can join with video to get the full experience or use the app in audio-only mode, to save battery-life.