Rubin Observatory

Site: Cerro Pachon, Chile

Funding: US NSF + DOE

Status: final phases of construction - completion expected 2023

LSST Science Drivers

Probing Dark Energy and Dark Matter

An unprecedented inventory of the Solar System from threatening NEO to the distant Oort Cloud

LSST Science Drivers

LSST Science Drivers

Exploring the Transients and Variable Universe

10M alerts every night shared with the world

60 seconds after observation

image credit ESO-Gaia

LSST Science Drivers

Mapping the Milky Way and Local Volume

via resolved stellar population

To accomplish this, we need:

1) a large telescope mirror to be sensitive - 8m (6.7m)

2) a large field-of-view for sky-scanning speed - 10 deg2

3) high spatial resolution, high quality images - 0.2''/pixels

4) Process images and produce catalogs of all 37B objects 

2M 3,200 Megapixel images in 10 years -about 60 PB of data

Objective: provide a science-ready dataset to transform the 4 key science area

single image depth ~24

10-year stack image depth ~26

image resolution 0.2'' (seeing limited)

18,000 sq degrees 

839 images over 10 years in 6 filters

2-3 images per night

each fields reobserved within ~days

5 fields observed to higher cadence and more images

survey specification

~25.9, 26.8, 26.8, 26.3, 25.6, 24.8

~56, 74, 184, 187, 166, 171

At this level of precision,everything is variable, everything is blended, everything is moving.

SDSS

LSST-like HSC composite

' ls.st/srd

*pstn-054.lsst.io v3.3 simulations

SDSS 2x4 arcmin sq griz

MYSUC (Gawiser 2014) 1 mag shallower than LSST coadds

At this level of precision,everything is variable, everything is blended, everything is moving.

' ls.st/srd

*pstn-054.lsst.io v3.3 simulations

September 2016

Fabruary 2020

May 2022

November 2022

May 2022

May 2022 - Telescope Mount Assembly

weight 2e5 kg, max slew rate 0.2 rad/s

Most of the weight in a 10m disk
Angular momentum
 

Secondary mirror coaded - to be mounte in April 2024

The DOE LSST Camera - 3.2 Gigapixel

3024 science raft amplifier channels

Camera and Cryostat integration completed at SLAC in May 2022,

Shutter and filter auto-changer integrated into camera body

LSSTCam undergoing final stages of testing at SLAC to be shipped soon!

Rubin ugrizy filters

𝑢 (left) and 𝑦 band (right) magnitude corrections associated with read-noise, QE, and vignetting effects for each amplifier in the CCD plane. 

0.4

- 0.4

*pstn-054.lsst.io

1.2m AuxTel:

running with LOVE since 2022

LOVE: LSST Operations Visualization Environment

K. Bechtol

stay up to date with ls.st/dates

First data release 3y from now

K. Bechtol

LSST

data products

Data Products

world public!

Template production : initial template can use as few as 3 good seeing images

Incremental templates in Y1:

• as the sky gets observed 3+ times templates are produced and released.
• The area of sky with available templates+alerts increases over Y1.
• The templates are not updated until DR1

Discovery Engine

10M alerts/night

Community Brokers

target observation managers

the astronomy discovery chain

Pitt-Google

Broker

BABAMUL

data right holders only

slide: Leanne Guy

Rubin LSST survey design

Milky Way

Transients & Variables

Cosmology

Solar System

Rubin LSST survey design

Milky Way

Transients & Variables

Cosmology

Solar System

Rubin LSST survey design

Rubin has involved the community to an unprecedented level in survey design this is a uniquely "democratic" process!

Survey Cadence Optimization Committee

The SCOC is advisory to the Rubin Observatory Operations Director (currently Bob Blum). It will begin its work in 2020, and will be a standing committee throughout the life of Rubin Observatory operations. 

https://ls.st/rubinscoc

Rubin LSST survey design

20 peer review papers accepted several more under review and in preparation https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0067-0049/page/rubin_cadence

Simulating the Legacy Survey of Space and Time Stellar Content with TRILEGAL - P. Dal Tio+ 2022 ApJS 262 22
LSST Survey Strategies and Brown Dwarf Parallaxes - J. E. Gizis+ 2022 ApJS 263 23
Rubin LSST Observing Strategies to Maximize Volume and Uniformity Coverage of Star-forming Regions in the Galactic Plane - L. Prisinzano+ 2023 ApJS 265 39
Light-curve Recovery with the Vera Rubin Observatory’s LSST. I. Pulsating Stars in Local Group Dwarf Galaxies - M. Di Criscienzo+ 2023 ApJS 265 41
LSST Survey Strategy in the Galactic Plane and Magellanic Clouds - R. A. Street+ 2023 ApJS 267 15
An Evenly Spaced LSST Cadence for Rapidly Variable Stars - E. D. Feigelson+ 2023 ApJS 268 11

Rubin LSST survey design

(~current plan: the Wide Fast Deep 75-90% of the sky time)

Over 500 survey strategy simulations have been vetted by the community for science throughput

Observing Strategy team lead: Lynne Jones

newer simulations ->

Survey Strategy contines to improve the majority of LSST Science Cases

Rubin LSST survey design

Rubin LSST survey design

v3.3 OpSims integrate new throughput curves corresponding to Agx3 mirror coating plan

(alternative to Al-Ag-Al)

Change in cumulative depth and number of visits over successive baseline simulations 

Rubin LSST survey design

v3.3 OpSims integrate new throughput curves corresponding to Agx3 mirror coating plan

(alternative to Al-Ag-Al)

http://astro-lsst-01.astro.washington.edu:8080/?runId=2

26.8

29.1

28.6

26.8

Rubin LSST survey design

(current plan: the Deep Drilling Fields)

700       N visits.     1200   

r

r

COSMOS

Euclid DF-S

Rubin LSST survey design

high-visit MW (6.6%)      low-visit MW (6.3%)        SCP (0.9%)           MCs (1.6%)

Rubin LSST survey design

(~current plan: the Wide Fast Deep 75-90% of the sky time)

Over 500 survey strategy simulations have been vetted by the community for science throughput

Observing Strategy team lead: Lynne Jones

Proper Motion Uncertainty

newer simulations ->

newer simulations ->

2.40 mas

2.05 mas

0.1975 mas

0.1825 mas

Parallax Uncertainty

newer simulations ->

newer simulations ->

10 mas

8.25 mas

2.45 mas

2.10 mas

Saturation limit

Note: this may change if we move from 2x15 seconds snaps to 1x30 seconds image - we will know in commissioning

13.5

15.2

15.15

13.65

g band median saturation

r band median saturation

Number of stars 

Blended and unblended

Synergies: Roman rolling field

Rubin LSST survey design

v3.3 OpSims integrate new throughput curves corresponding to Agx3 mirror coating plan

(alternative to Al-Ag-Al)

Some fun stuff we are doing at FASTLab

Atmosphere-aided studies

dM                 energy

dDCR               color                temperature

Riley Clarke, Davenport, Gizis, Bianco, in prep

Riley Clarke

Atmosphere-aided studies

Riley Clarke, Davenport, Gizis, Bianco, in prep

Riley Clarke

Will we discover new physics?

A comparative assessment of LSST potential surveys in the discovery of unknown unknowns

Galarza, Bianco et al. 2021

Xiaolong Li

Li et al. 2021

Proper motion anomalies

Ragosta, Li, Clarkson, Bianco

Xiaolong Li

Rubin Operations Research Inclusion team

Rubin Observatory LSST 

MMA and LEOsats

Iridium satellite number 35 lit up the predawn sky west of Boston at 5 a.m. EST on February 1, 1998,  Sky & Telescope

Satellite flares

Time domain Rubin LSST science

can be mitigated:

- orientation of satellite,

- directing flares away from observer

- knowing coordinates to associate them to alerts

if not mitigate there would be bogus alerts and images ruined by saturating flares

Hainaut & Williams 2020

https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.01992