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Rubin Hosts Teacher Workshops in Chile

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Photo of participants

Teachers in Chile get hands-on experience using Rubin Observatory’s classroom investigations

Rubin Represents in New Orleans

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Rubin Observatory team members joined scientists, students, and astronomy enthusiasts at a recent meeting in New Orleans
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) held its annual winter meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 7-11, and Rubin Observatory sent an enthusiastic group of staff members and scientists to participate. Overall, the meeting drew more than 3000 in-person attendees, and the agenda was packed each day from morning until night with inspiring speakers, science presentations, press conferences, workshops, and more.

Happy Holidays from Rubin Observatory

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From all of us at Rubin Observatory, have a happy and healthy holiday season, and best wishes for the New Year!

Rubin Observatory Will Unlock Fossil Record of Galaxy Cluster Evolution

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Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s fast-moving telescope and huge digital camera will illuminate the faint glow of free-floating stars within galaxy clusters
December 4, 2023
Intracluster light, the collective glow of innumerable stars stripped from their home galaxies and left to wander vast intergalactic space, is incredibly faint and difficult to detect. Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time will be the first astronomical survey to provide scientists with the data they need to detect intracluster light in thousands of galaxy clusters, unlocking clues to the evolutionary history of the Universe on large scales.

Science by the Sea

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Scientists and Rubin staff gather in Croatia to prepare for Rubin Observatory data. Credit: LSST Discovery Alliance/T. Licul

No matter what activity you love, you’ve probably experienced the benefits of getting together with other people who love it too. Sharing ideas as a community, either online or in person, can be so inspiring! That feeling is what drew about 150 scientists and Rubin staff (with an additional ~55 participating online) to Poreč, Croatia, from September 25-29 for a meeting called LSST@Europe5. LSST is short for Legacy Survey of Space and Time — the name of the 10-year survey Rubin will begin in 2025.

Rubin 2023—Operations Team Takes the PCW Helm

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The Rubin Operations team hosted its first Rubin Project and Community Workshop (PCW) in August 2023, after more than 15 years of annual meetings facilitated by the Rubin Construction Project. Construction leadership and many staff members were still active participants in the meeting, but this year’s agenda had a stronger focus on preparations for using Rubin data and other topics of interest to the growing Rubin science community. More than 300 people attended the meeting in person at the University Marriott in Tucson, Arizona, and an additional 160 people registered to participate virtually in plenaries and select breakout sessions.

TMA Achieves Substantial Completion

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The structure that will support the telescope’s optical system is handed over to the Rubin team

April 14, 2023 - Rubin Observatory celebrated a major construction milestone at the end of March, when the Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA), the structure that will soon support the observatory’s optical system, was declared substantially complete. That designation means that testing has proven that the TMA is functioning well enough for UTE, the Spain-based consortium contracted by Rubin to build and assemble the TMA on the summit, to hand it over to the Rubin team for integration of other components.

Cart & Rails Testing on the Summit

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In this video you can see the summit team pushing a large metal cart on rails. The cart is used for installing and removing a heavy structure on the telescope mount: a 52,600-kilogram (~58-ton) “surrogate mass.” The surrogate mass is standing in for the primary mirror and its steel supporting structure (called the “cell”), providing the balance necessary for moving the telescope mount during tests. The real primary mirror and its cell will be installed later this year, using a different custom-built cart. 

Rubin Shines at AAS 241

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Photo of the Rubin booth at AAS featuring the star sticker on the ground.

LSST@Europe4 Wraps up in Rome

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LSST@Europe4 conference attendees enjoy a guided tour of the Farnesina Villa in Rome, Italy. Image: B. Blum.

November 16, 2022 - A productive and collaborative meeting, "LSST@Europe4 - Shaping the European Contribution to LSST," took place October 24-28 in Rome, Italy, with a high level or participation from members of the Rubin Operations and Construction teams. The meeting focused on the last phases of Rubin Construction, the transition to Operations, and on the participation of international communities in commissioning, early science, and the LSST Science Collaborations. Rubin staff members gave presentations on Construction project status, integration and commissioning, operations, In-Kind program status, and early science.

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Financial support for Rubin Observatory comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Cooperative Support Agreement No. 1202910, the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515, and private funding raised by the LSST Corporation. The NSF-funded Rubin Observatory Project Office for construction was established as an operating center under management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).  The DOE-funded effort to build the the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera (LSSTCam) is managed by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC).
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science. NSF supports basic research and people to create knowledge that transforms the future.
NSF and DOE will continue to support Rubin Observatory in its Operations phase. They will also provide support for scientific research with LSST data.   




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