The Observers Notebook- The Vera C Rubin Observatory

Well, tell us about the telescope itself.

Yeah.

So, um, this telescope, um, is designed to conduct the Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

And so the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, LSST-

That sounds very Doctor Who-ish.

[laughs]

[laughs] Yes, definitely.

So it, it des- um, scan the southern sky for a decade, uh, creating what we like to say is the greatest cosmo- uh, cosmic movie ever made.

Um, and so by having this repeated scanning, you are both looking, um, deep.

You can, as you, uh, accumulate more images, you can see, um, fainter sources, and so you can see these, these deep images.

But it also opens up the time domain.

You can see anything that's changing, anything that's moving, flashing, varying, and blinking.

And so that's what this survey is, is designed to do, is, um, both these deep, uh, have both this deep and time domain component, creating a data set which is a treasure trove for a huge number of science areas.

But to do that, you need a, a pretty special telescope.

You need, um, uh, a...

And I'll just stop here.

Um, you need a pretty special telescope to, um, be able to, to conduct a survey like that.

Mm-hmm.

So Rubin returns to the same patch of sky, but every three to four nights with amazing sensitivity.

So we have the LSST camera.

So this is the largest digital camera ever built.

It's 3,200 megapixels.

Has about [laughs] a 10 square degree field of view.

Oh my goodness.

So for reference, that's about 45 full moons can fit in one image.

Well, tell us about the telescope itself.

Yeah.

So, um, this telescope, um, is designed to conduct the Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

And so the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, LSST-

That sounds very Doctor Who-ish.

[laughs]

[laughs] Yes, definitely.

So it, it des- um, scan the southern sky for a decade, uh, creating what we like to say is the greatest cosmo- uh, cosmic movie ever made.

Um, and so by having this repeated scanning, you are both looking, um, deep.

You can, as you, uh, accumulate more images, you can see, um, fainter sources, and so you can see these, these deep images.

But it also opens up the time domain.

You can see anything that's changing, anything that's moving, flashing, varying, and blinking.

And so that's what this survey is, is designed to do, is, um, both these deep, uh, have both this deep and time domain component, creating a data set which is a treasure trove for a huge number of science areas.

But to do that, you need a, a pretty special telescope.

You need, um, uh, a...

And I'll just stop here.

Um, you need a pretty special telescope to, um, be able to, to conduct a survey like that.

Mm-hmm.

So Rubin returns to the same patch of sky, but every three to four nights with amazing sensitivity.

So we have the LSST camera.

So this is the largest digital camera ever built.

It's 3,200 megapixels.

Has about [laughs] a 10 square degree field of view.

Oh my goodness.

So for reference, that's about 45 full moons can fit in one image.