rubinann17014 — Announcement

Rubin Digest 20 June 2017

20 June 2017

Project News

Don’t forget to register for the LSST 2017 Project and Community Workshop, which will take place at the Westin La Paloma in Tucson, AZ the week of August 14-18. Although the deadline to suggest a session has passed, we encourage ongoing discussions on the LSST2017 Community Forum. Your ideas and feedback will be valuable as sessions are planned and the Workshop agenda is finalized. Make LSST 2017 YOUR meeting!

The LSST Science Advisory Committee will have a face-to-face meeting the morning of August 14, in coordination with LSST 2017.  All attendees to LSST 2017 are welcome to join. Please refer to the published LSST 2017 agenda for the time and location of the meeting.

The LSST Operations Proposal Review meeting took place on June 7-8. This in-person meeting between Red Team reviewers and project leadership enabled productive discussion that will contribute to the overall strengthening of the Proposal.

LSST’s new and improved Gallery website is now live! Photo and video files are now searchable by date, subject, location, and more. Files can be easily downloaded for use according to LSST Media Use Policy. Watch the Gallery for frequent additions of new content; it’s accessible from links on LSST’s Public and Project websites.

On Cerro Pachón, road repairs have been completed to restore full access after a recent series of winter storms. The final batch of concrete has been poured for the lower pier of the Auxiliary Telescope. With the interior steel structure in place and the pre-assembled Ash Dome standing by for installation, the facility for the Auxiliary Telescope is almost complete. At the base facility, demolition of the existing warehouse is underway, making room for the new data center. Webcams for construction activity can be accessed in the LSST Gallery.

The Camera team held an all-hands meeting on June 15. On the agenda was the celebration of two recent major accomplishments resulting from the concerted effort of many individuals. The first, reported in a previous digest, was the completion and acceptance of the first Raft Tower Module (RTM). The second was the completion of the cryostat grid, which will support the camera’s 21 sensor rafts. All components of the cryostat are now at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

June 30 is Asteroid Day, a day for raising awareness about the potential threat to Earth posed by asteroids. LSST has been recognized as an important tool to identify and track Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs), and the project will be featured during the 24-hour Asteroid Day Live broadcast on astronomy and asteroid science. LSST was also highlighted in a June 13th GeekWire article as a critical contributor to future asteroid science and planetary defense.

Corporation News

The Solar System Science Collaboration (SSSC) launched its new website on June 11, and is currently forming working groups in several areas determined by input from SSSC members. These working groups will provide forums for people with similar specific interests to interact and have more detailed conversations than are possible on the full SSSC listserv. The working group areas are the outer Solar System, the inner Solar System, NEOs (Near Earth Objects), active objects, and community software/infrastructure development.  

Getting Ready for Doing Science with LSST Data, an LSSTC-sponsored school and workshop, was held in Lyon, France at the IN2P3 Computing Center this week. Videos of the conference presentations can be found here.

Personnel

Sabine Elles joined the Data Management subsystem as a computing engineer on June 1. Sabine will be involved in the construction of the LSST computing services at the IN2P3 Computing Center.

Michelle Butler joined the Data Management subsystem as Senior Technical Program Manager on June 1. Michelle will be coordinating LSST activities for the groups in NCSA’s Integrated Cyberinfrastructure Directorate, including system administration, networking, storage, and databases.

Luis Corral joined the LSST IT group on June 19th as a Network Engineer located in Chile. Luis comes to LSST from European Southern Observatory (ESO); he will be working on the installation of the LSST summit networking system along with the computer room equipment.

Upcoming Meetings with LSST Involvement

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

2017

June 19 – 21: AURA Workforce and Diversity Committee (WDC), Maui, HI

June 25-30: Adaptive Optics for Extremely Large Telescopes (AO4ELT5) Meeting, Canary Islands, Spain

July 10 - 14: DESC Meeting, Dark Energy School, and Hack Day*, jointly hosted by Stony Brook University & BNL

July 14: The Photometric LSST Astronomical Time-series Classification Challenge (PLAsTiCC)*, Flatiron Institute, NY (additional dates/locations TBA in locations throughout North America and the UK)

July 25-27: NSF/DOE Joint Status Review of Data Management, NCSA, IL

August 14 – 18: LSST 2017 Project & Community Workshop, Tucson, AZ

September 6 – 8: NSF/DOE Joint Status Review, Tucson, AZ

September 14 – 15: AURA Management Council for LSST (AMCL) Meeting, Tucson, AZ

September 26-28: Education and Public Outreach (EPO) subsystem review, Tucson, AZ

October 22-26: Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) Conference, Santiago, Chile

October 26-28: Society of Women Engineers WE17 Conference, Austin, TX

November 7 – 9: AURA Workforce & Diversity Committee (WDC), La Serena, Chile