Surveying the Sky with Rubin Observatory

Event Date:
2024-03-11T16:00:00
2024-03-11T17:00:00
Event Location:
HENN 318
Speaker:
Lynne Jones (Areotek/Rubin Observatory)
Related Upcoming Events:
Astronomy Colloquia
Intended Audience:
Undergraduate
Local Contact:

Allison Man (aman@phas.ubc.ca) and Brett Gladman (gladman@astro.ubc.ca)

All are welcome to this in-person event!

Event Information:

Abstract:

Rubin Observatory is on track to start operations of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) in fall 2025, setting off a rush of data that will be massive (20TB per night) and nonstop for ten years. The LSST will survey approximately 20,000 square degrees of sky in ugrizy bandpasses, with highly accurate astrometry and photometry, with individual images reaching depths of about 24.5 in r band.

Construction of Rubin has been a long road, starting around 2000, becoming one of the top priorities of the 2010 Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey recommendations, pushing through COVID -- but commissioning starts this summer and survey operations are on track to start in fall 2025.

The core science drivers for the LSST are constraining dark energy and dark matter, mapping the Milky Way and Local Volume, inventorying the Solar System, and opening new windows on the Transient and Variables Sky. To support these goals, the LSST footprint includes a "Wide Fast Deep" (WFD) region that will receive on the order of 800 visits per pointing, along with additional "mini-survey" coverage of the ecliptic, the galactic plane, and the south celestial pole. The survey plan also includes five Deep Drilling Fields, a few hundred square degrees which receive more than 10x the coverage of the WFD, as well as the possibility for additional "micro-surveys" requiring less than ~1% of the total survey time. 

Final (10 year) coadded depths for the 18,000 square degrees in the WFD footprint of the survey will reach approximately 27th magnitude in r band. Photometric redshift measurements are expected to be accurate to 1-3% over a range of 0.2 to 3 in redshift. On the order 20 billion galaxies and 17 billion resolved stars will be reported in the resulting catalogs. Astrometry is expected to be accurate to about 50 mas (10 mas relative precision) with photometric accuracy of 10 mmag.

"Alerts" for each visit, coming from difference imaging, will provide immediate insight into real-time events captured by the survey. On the order of 10 million alerts are expected per night. With multiple measurements per night, typically supplemented by additional visits in the next few days, including information from multiple bandpasses, the alert stream passes a rich source of information about transient and variable phenomenon to the astronomical community. Moving objects will be linked into detections of Solar System objects, with approximately 6 million objects expected to be discovered -- a large fraction of which will be characterized with lightcurve measurements, allowing determination of colors, rotation periods, and phase curves. 

Bio:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lynne Jones is the LSST Performance Scientist, working with Rubin Observatory. She is currently working on the optimization of the LSST survey strategy. She studies small objects throughout the Solar System, with a particular interest in surveys for distant TransNeptunian Objects and lightcurve properties of asteroids. She is currently located in Victoria, BC. 

 

Learn More:


 

Add to Calendar 2024-03-11T16:00:00 2024-03-11T17:00:00 Surveying the Sky with Rubin Observatory Event Information: Abstract: Rubin Observatory is on track to start operations of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) in fall 2025, setting off a rush of data that will be massive (20TB per night) and nonstop for ten years. The LSST will survey approximately 20,000 square degrees of sky in ugrizy bandpasses, with highly accurate astrometry and photometry, with individual images reaching depths of about 24.5 in r band. Construction of Rubin has been a long road, starting around 2000, becoming one of the top priorities of the 2010 Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey recommendations, pushing through COVID -- but commissioning starts this summer and survey operations are on track to start in fall 2025. The core science drivers for the LSST are constraining dark energy and dark matter, mapping the Milky Way and Local Volume, inventorying the Solar System, and opening new windows on the Transient and Variables Sky. To support these goals, the LSST footprint includes a "Wide Fast Deep" (WFD) region that will receive on the order of 800 visits per pointing, along with additional "mini-survey" coverage of the ecliptic, the galactic plane, and the south celestial pole. The survey plan also includes five Deep Drilling Fields, a few hundred square degrees which receive more than 10x the coverage of the WFD, as well as the possibility for additional "micro-surveys" requiring less than ~1% of the total survey time.  Final (10 year) coadded depths for the 18,000 square degrees in the WFD footprint of the survey will reach approximately 27th magnitude in r band. Photometric redshift measurements are expected to be accurate to 1-3% over a range of 0.2 to 3 in redshift. On the order 20 billion galaxies and 17 billion resolved stars will be reported in the resulting catalogs. Astrometry is expected to be accurate to about 50 mas (10 mas relative precision) with photometric accuracy of 10 mmag. "Alerts" for each visit, coming from difference imaging, will provide immediate insight into real-time events captured by the survey. On the order of 10 million alerts are expected per night. With multiple measurements per night, typically supplemented by additional visits in the next few days, including information from multiple bandpasses, the alert stream passes a rich source of information about transient and variable phenomenon to the astronomical community. Moving objects will be linked into detections of Solar System objects, with approximately 6 million objects expected to be discovered -- a large fraction of which will be characterized with lightcurve measurements, allowing determination of colors, rotation periods, and phase curves.  Bio:                       Lynne Jones is the LSST Performance Scientist, working with Rubin Observatory. She is currently working on the optimization of the LSST survey strategy. She studies small objects throughout the Solar System, with a particular interest in surveys for distant TransNeptunian Objects and lightcurve properties of asteroids. She is currently located in Victoria, BC.    Learn More: See Lynne's Bio from the Institute for Data Intensive Research in Astrophysics & Cosmology (DiRAC) Explore the Rubin Observatory Explore the Legacy Survey of space and time (LSST)    Event Location: HENN 318