August 26, 2019 - More than 300 participants attended this year's LSST Project and Community Workshop, an annual meeting that brings together LSST Project staff, affiliates, and members of the science community to celebrate successes, report progress, and discuss upcoming challenges. This year’s meeting, held August 12-16 at the Hilton El Conquistador resort in Tucson, AZ, also offered ample opportunities for participants to interact outside of formal sessions, with early-morning soccer matches and board game nights bookending each day of the meeting.

Based on the success of last year’s program, the LSST Corporation sponsored 24 student interns to attend this year’s meeting. During Monday’s plenary session, students took turns presenting 30-second summaries of their research projects and invited attendees to bring their questions and comments to the student poster session scheduled for that evening. Photos of the poster session and a group photo are available at this link.

Tuesday’s morning plenary session featured a presentation by LSST Chief Scientist Tony Tyson on the effects of low Earth orbit satellite constellations on LSST images, followed by overview talks by representatives from four of the eight LSST Science Collaborations: Solar System, Galaxies, Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), and Transients and Variable Stars (TVS). After a full day of breakout sessions, workshop participants enjoyed a reception on Tuesday evening, gathering for food, music, and conversation as the summer day cooled down.

Wednesday’s morning plenary began with a popular feature of recent meetings, a series of “Lightning Talks” by LSST Project team members. These 5-minute talks give the invited speakers a venue to share information about their roles in the project as well as their personal hobbies and interests. The talks often feature entertaining anecdotes and photos, and are always identified as a highlight of the workshop. After Lightning Talks, representatives from the remaining four Science Collaborations gave overview talks: Stars, Milky Way, and the Local Volume; Dark Energy; Information and Statistics; and Strong Lensing.

The Thursday plenary featured more Lightning Talks followed by a presentation on Commissioning and Verification for LSST. Chuck Claver, LSST Systems Engineering and Commissioning Manager, and Sandrine Thomas, Telescope and Site Subsystem Scientist, shared progress reports and the upcoming schedule for Commissioning efforts. The talk concluded with a request for volunteers: students or seasoned professionals willing to offer their time and expertise to the Commissioning effort in exchange for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work directly with the LSST system as it is assembled and tested on Cerro Pachón.

A workshop on Difference Imaging Analysis (DIA) was held in parallel with the meeting’s breakout sessions on Tuesday and Thursday. The DIA workshop offered an opportunity for LSST Science Community and Project members to address challenges related to a key theme of LSST’s mission: exploring the changing sky. Topics addressed during the two-day workshop included technical discussions of image subtraction, object classification, and community expectations of the planned LSST data products.

A public talk on Thursday evening, titled LSST and Black Holes, featured Feryal Ozel, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at The University of Arizona, and Raffaella Margutti, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy from Northwestern University. The speakers discussed recent black hole discoveries and what might be revealed when LSST begins its ten-year survey. LSST Project Manager Victor Krabbendam also gave an overview and status update on LSST Construction, highlighting the many milestones reached over the past year. An article promoting the talk in the Arizona Daily Star and an item that aired on KGUN-9 television helped drive attendance to this event—more than 300 people were estimated to be in the audience.

The dates for the LSST 2020 Project and Community Workshop were announced at the closing plenary on Friday; next year’s meeting will take place August 10-14 in Tucson. The venue for next year’s workshop will be announced when it is confirmed.
 

August 20, 2019 - The LSST Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA), one of the last large components of the telescope to be shipped to Chile this year (the LSST Camera will be shipped in 2020), set sail from Spain at the end of July aboard a vessel named Lisa Auerbach.

On the morning of July 27th, the team responsible for overseeing the loading of the ship arrived at the port of Aviles, Spain, near the Asturfeito factory where the TMA was constructed. Shawn Callahan, LSST TMA Technical Manager; and Michael Logue, LSST Principal Surveyor, were present for the loading, as well as Asturfeito's Francisco Romero, Construction Manager; and Pelayo Fernández, Project Engineer. The TMA, a structure much too large to ship as a whole unit, was disassembled into more manageable pieces at the Asturfeito factory over the last few months. The attached photo shows some of the pieces of cargo prior to loading.

The ship's hold was clean and freshly painted, but damp from recent rains. By mid-morning, however, the hold was dry and ready to receive the cargo. A crew of port stevedores, contracted by Asturfeito, rigged the pieces of cargo on land. Then each load was lifted into the ship's hold, where another crew of stevedores placed and secured it. According to Shawn Callahan, "The stevedores were all about speed, while the four of us were doing our best to make sure nothing got damaged—we split up our team to carefully monitor the operation."

Preparations made on the previous day also ensured that the teams had some practice working with the bulky, oddly-shaped loads. Michael Logue pointed out that "The telescope offered a unique challenge, because almost every lift was a different, unusual shape. This crew has spent years installing mainly rectangular and round shapes, so our marine-wrapped pieces—which looked like huge flying bats and peacocks—were new."

It was an action-packed and sometimes stressful day, but in the end all 26 pieces of TMA cargo, weighing a total of 326.6 metric tons (360 tons), were loaded aboard securely and the ship departed the following day. The vessel will make just a couple of stops en route and is scheduled to arrive in Coquimbo in early September. You can track the ship's progress on this website (enter the ship's name, Lisa Auerbach, in the search bar) and be sure to watch this space for an announcement when it arrives!
 

Arizona Daily Star - https://tucson.com

August 9, 2019 - Earlier this summer, the LSST Project Office received a special delivery from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory: the commissioning camera for the full LSST Camera. This “miniature” 144-megapixel camera, referred to as ComCam, will be used to test the different systems that will eventually interact with the full 3200-megapixel LSST Camera, allowing LSST engineers and scientists to troubleshoot issues in advance of the full LSST Camera integration. ComCam will also produce valuable scientific preview data that will help the LSST Science Community as it prepares to do science with the much larger LSST data set during Operations.

So why is ComCam in Tucson? Now that it has arrived at the Tucson instrumentation shop, the ComCam cryostat assembly (built by SLAC) will be integrated with the camera optics and parts of the telescope structure and tested under software control as it will be in Chile. These optics include a field corrector consisting of three glass lenses, a three-position filter changer, and a camera shutter—all will be added to the camera. After that, ComCam will undergo several weeks of functional and performance testing, similar to the testing being performed on the full LSST Camera at SLAC. This will be the first time the hardware of ComCam is integrated with the observatory software (developed by Telescope and Site) and the Data Management systems, marking a significant integration of LSST’s three major subsystems. The observatory software created by the LSST Telescope and Site team is the software that controls the camera and coordinates with the other observatory systems. The Data Management systems, provided by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Illinois, will take the data from the camera and transmit it to NCSA for analysis. Once all of these systems are playing nicely together, the team will run through a simulated night of observations where software programs stand in for the major components of the LSST observatory—the dome, telescope, mirrors, etc. These software programs will communicate with ComCam the same way the actual components will on the summit; this test can be considered a "dress rehearsal" for the observing that will take place on Cerro Pachón once the ComCam arrives there.

In the fall, once these simulations and tests are completed, the entire instrument will be installed into a section of the telescope support structure that is designed to mimic the full-sized LSST Camera (having the same mass and center of gravity). After verifying that everything fits and is positioned properly, ComCam will be carefully packaged and shipped to Chile for an anticipated arrival in early 2020.  

PROJECT & SCIENCE NEWS - NOTICIAS DEL PROYECTO Y DE LA CIENCIA

We invite you to attend a free evening talk, “LSST and Black Holes,” on Thursday, August 15, during the LSST Project and Community Workshop. Featured speakers are LSST Project Manager Victor Krabbendam, University of Arizona astrophysicist Feryal Ozel, and Northwestern University’s Raffaella Margutti. Everyone is welcome and no registration is necessary. More information and speaker bios are available at this link.

After additional study, LSST has released an updated statement on the large-scale deployment of low Earth orbit satellite constellations. The updated wording can be found at this link.

The LSST Auxiliary Telescope (AuxTel) achieved engineering first light on the night of July 23rd, on Cerro Pachón, with all its system components (both hardware and control software) operational, and the telescope pointed at the sky. The AuxTel still has a number of outstanding items to be completed, but this initial on-sky testing indicated that things are on the right track. 

At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the LSST Camera team has successfully inserted the four production corner rafts inside the cryostat, marking the official start of the focal plane integration. Nine science rafts will be inserted in the next couple of months, leading to an intermediate electro-optical test before the remaining rafts are installed.

On Cerro Pachón, the LSST Secondary Mirror (M2) received its first reflective coating on July 16th. Testing at the conclusion of the campaign confirmed that the mirror coating not only met, but exceeded reflectivity requirements. More details about the activity can be found in this recent news item.

The LSST Primary/Tertiary Mirror (M1M3) cell, which arrived on Cerro Pachón in mid-July, was successfully moved into the LSST observatory building on July 25th. The M1M3 cell (the steel structure that will support the mirror) was placed on rubber mats on the maintenance floor of the facility (photo at this link), but has since been moved onto the M1M3 transport cart. This milestone marks the beginning of the M1M3 cell and surrogate mirror integration on the summit.

The LSST Telescope Mount Assembly (TMA) departed Spain for Chile aboard the vessel Lisa Auerbach on July 29th. The disassembled, marine-wrapped pieces of the TMA were loaded without damage despite the challenge presented by their unusual sizes and shapes. Photos from the ship loading are available in the LSST Gallery. The TMA is expected to arrive in Chile in early September.

The “Big Data - Small Planets” workshop, which brought together experts in the analysis of astronomical time series to discuss machine learning and big data challenges in exoplanet photometry, spectroscopy, and population synthesis was held in Israel on July 7-11. A full report on the workshop is available on the LSST Community Forum and a link to presentations is available on the workshop website.

PERSONNEL NEWS

Juan Lopez joined the Telescope and Site subsystem on August 1st as a mechanical integration technician. As a member of the summit Assembly, Integration, and Verification (AIV) team, he will provide support to mechanical activities for assembly and integration of telescope and site mechanical systems, starting with the M1M3 cell assembly. 

The LSST Education and Public Outreach team is now accepting applications for a Web Designer and a Web Developer. Additional opportunities with LSST, including IT Network Engineer, Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer, and IT Systems Engineer are available on the LSST hiring website. Help us spread the word! 

UPCOMING MEETINGS with LSST INVOLVEMENT

(those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

NOTICIAS DEL PROYECTO Y DE LA CIENCIA

Los invitamos a asistir a una charla nocturna gratuita, "LSST y Los Agujeros Negros”, el jueves 15 de agosto, durante el Taller del Proyecto LSST y Comunitario. Los oradores destacados son el Gerente de Proyecto LSST, Victor Krabbendam, el astrofísico de la Universidad de Arizona, Feryal Ozel, y Raffaella Margutti de la Universidad Northwestern. Todos son bienvenidos y no es necesario registrarse. Más información y biografías de los oradores están disponible en este enlace link.

Después de un estudio adicional, LSST ha publicado una declaración actualizada sobre el despliegue a gran escala de las constelaciones de satélites de órbita terrestre. La redacción actualizada se puede encontrar en este enlace link.

El Telescopio Auxiliar de LSST (AuxTel) logró la primera luz de ingeniería la noche del 23 de julio en Cerro Pachón, con todos sus componentes del sistema (hardware y software de control) operativos, y el telescopio apuntó hacia el cielo. El AuxTel todavía tiene varios elementos pendientes por completar, pero esta prueba inicial del cielo indicó que las cosas van en el camino correcto. 

En SLAC Laboratorio Nacional de Aceleradores, el equipo de la cámara de LSST ha insertado exitosamente los cuatro módulos esquineros de producción dentro del criostato, marcando el inicio oficial de la integración del plano focal. Se insertarán nueve módulos científicos en los próximos meses, lo que conducirá a una prueba electroóptica intermedia antes de instalar los módulos restantes.

En Cerro Pachón, el espejo secundario (M2) de LSST recibió su primer recubrimiento reflectante el 16 de julio. Las pruebas al final de la campaña confirmaron que el recubrimiento de espejo no solo cumplió, sino que excedió los requisitos de reflectividad. Se pueden encontrar más detalles sobre la actividad en este artículo reciente news item.

La celda del espejo primario/terciario (M1M3) de LSST, que llegó a Cerro Pachón a mediados de julio, fue trasladada con éxito al edificio del observatorio LSST el 25 de julio. La celda M1M3 (la estructura de acero que soportará el espejo) fue posicionada sobre alfombras de goma en el piso de mantenimiento de la instalación (foto en este enlace link), pero se ha trasladado al carro de transporte M1M3 desde entonces. Este hito marca el comienzo de la integración de la celda M1M3 y el espejo sustituto en el cerro.

El Ensamblaje del Soporte del Telescopio LSST (TMA) partió de España hacia Chile a bordo del buque Lisa Auerbach el 29 de julio. Las piezas desensambladas y envueltas del TMA se cargaron sin daños a pesar del desafío presentado por sus tamaños y formas inusuales. Las fotos de la carga del barco están disponibles en la Galería LSST LSST Gallery. Se espera que el TMA llegue a Chile a principios de septiembre.

El taller “Grandes Datos – Pequeños Planetas”, que reunió a expertos en el análisis de series de tiempo astronómicos para discutir sobre el aprendizaje automático y los desafíos de los grandes datos en fotometría de exoplanetas, espectroscopía y síntesis de población, se llevó a cabo en Israel del 7 al 11 de julio. Un informe completo sobre el taller está disponible en el Foro de la Comunidad LSST LSST Community Forum y un enlace con las presentaciones está disponible en el sitio web website del taller.

NOTICIAS DE PERSONAL

Juan López se unió al subsistema de Telescopio y Sitio el 1 de agosto como técnico de integración mecánica. Como miembro del equipo de Ensamblaje, Integración y Verificación (AIV) del cerro, brindará apoyo a las actividades mecánicas para el ensamblaje y la integración de los sistemas mecánicos de telescopio y sitio, comenzando con el ensamblaje de la celda M1M3.  

El equipo de Educación y Difusión Pública de LSST ahora está aceptando postulaciones para un Diseñador Web Web Designer y un Desarrollador Web Web Developer. En el website sitio web de contratación de LSST se encuentran disponibles oportunidades adicionales con LSST, entre otros Ingeniero en Redes de TI, Ingeniero de Software, Ingeniero de Software Senior e Ingeniero de Sistemas de TI. ¡Ayúdanos a correr la voz! 

PRÓXIMAS REUNIONES CON PARTICIPACION DE LSST

(aquellas con asterisco * son financiadas por LSSTC):

LSST & BLACK HOLES

Thursday, August 15, 2019 @ 7:00 pm

Hilton El Conquistador Turquoise Ballroom
10000 North Oracle Road, Tucson, Arizona, 85704

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is approaching completion on the Cerro Pachón ridge in north-central Chile.  When science operations begin in 2022, LSST will scan the sky with the world’s largest digital camera, creating a 500 petabyte set of images and data products that will address the most pressing questions about the structure and evolution of the universe and the objects in it.  Among these objects are black holes, objects so dense they warp the fabric of space-time, objects whose incredible properties are only recently becoming known to us.  You are invited to join us for an evening of black hole science and learn about Tucson’s leadership role in LSST’s voyage of scientific discovery.

During this public event, LSST Project Manager Victor Krabbendam will provide an update on LSST construction progress, University of Arizona astrophysicist Feryal Özel will discuss the latest black hole discoveries from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) and Northwestern University’s Raffaella Margutti will describe what we have learned from the first multi-messenger observations of a neutron star merger with gravitational waves and light, and what might be revealed when LSST begins its ten-year survey.  

Speakers

Raffaella Margutti 
Northwestern University

Raffaella Margutti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Northwestern University.  She utilizes observations of transient astrophysical phenomena including stellar explosions and stellar tidal disruptions by supermassive black holes.  She serves as the chair of the Gravitational Wave source follow-up with LSST within the LSST Transient and Variable Stars science collaboration.  As an astrophysicist, her research specifically focuses on the biggest explosions and disruptions that occur in our Universe: Supernovae, Gamma-Ray Bursts, compact stellar mergers that are sources of gravitational waves and tidal disruption events. Margutti investigates the physics of these events by combining broad-band observations across the electromagnetic spectrum, including X-ray, UV, optical, IR, and radio.  The primary goal of her research is to understand the nature of the physical processes that regulate such dramatic displays. 

Feryal Özel
University of Arizona

Feryal Özel is a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics in the Department of Astronomy at University of Arizona. She has made pioneering contributions to the physics of neutron stars and black holes, as well as to the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies in the early Universe. Dr. Özel led the Model Comparison group for the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) that released the first image of a black hole in April of 2019. She made the first accurate measurements of the neutron star radii that constrain the ultradense matter equation of state. Based on her work on accretion flows, she made the first size predictions of the images of nearby supermassive black holes at different wavelengths.

Victor Krabbendam
AURA/LSST

Victor Krabbendam has been LSST Project Manager since 2012, after eight years as Project Manager for the LSST Telescope & Site subsystem. Trained as a mechanical engineer, Victor has worked in industry, government, and with major astronomical research facilities including the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory and the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope, a 4.1 meter telescope that is LSST's neighbor on Cerro Pachón.

July 30, 2019 - If shiny things get your attention, prepare to be dazzled by the newly coated LSST Secondary Mirror (M2)! The mirror received its first reflective coating on July 16, 2019, at the LSST summit facility building on Cerro Pachón. The 3.4-meter M2 mirror arrived on the summit in December 2018, after being shipped from Rochester, NY, where it was fabricated by L3Harris (formerly Harris Corporation). Since its arrival the container holding the mirror has been stored inside the LSST observatory building, on the roof of the camera clean room. Until the coating campaign, the mirror hadn't been removed from the box, although careful inspections of all parts of the mirror were conducted to make sure no damage occurred during shipping.

The M2 surrogate (an aluminum structure that stands in for the glass mirror during testing) was used to test all coating parameters, with witness samples placed all around and over the mirror surrogate, first on May of this year and again a week before the glass M2 was placed into the coating chamber. After evaluating the results, the team determined that the performance of the coating plant, the coating parameters, and everything else was ready to coat the glass mirror.

It's critical to remove all dust and debris from the surface of the mirror before applying the coating, so on July 8th the M2 mirror was lifted from its storage container into a dedicated washing station, using the bridge crane installed over the coating area, and cleaned. Then the mirror was lifted into the coating chamber and the vacuum process was initiated. Overnight the chamber was evacuated to a vacuum level of 3 x 10-7 millibars and by the next morning conditions were perfect for coating the mirror.

The LSST Coating Chamber uses magnetron sputtering technology, a method that has proven successful with mirrors for other large telescopes including the twin Gemini Telescopes and the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope. There are two rings of magnetrons inside the LSST Coating Chamber: an inner ring that will be used to apply coatings to the M2 mirror and the M3 mirror, and an outer ring that will apply coatings to the 8.4-meter M1 mirror. In order to achieve the overall combination of durability and reflectivity necessary to achieve LSST's science goals over its ten-year survey lifetime, the M2 mirror was coated with protected silver, and the M1M3 mirror will be coated with protected aluminum.

Coating the M2 mirror took just over four hours and, according to LSST Senior Coating Engineer Tomislav Vucina, everything went smoothly throughout the process. The attached video shows the mirror being coated through a small window built into the coating chamber; the mirror is the stationary object in the center.

The coating team ran a series of tests at the conclusion of the coating process and found that reflectivity results, adhesion tests, and pinholes count not only met, but exceeded the requirements. With the M2 coating campaign successfully accomplished, the mirror was returned to its container and lifted back into its storage area, where it will be out of the way of other activities being performed on the maintenance level of the building. The mirror will be inspected every three months, to monitor the reflectivity and clean off dust, until it's time to integrate the glass mirror with the M2 cell assembly in 2021.

Updated statment now available.

PROJECT & SCIENCE NEWS - NOTICIAS DEL PROYECTO & DE LA CIENCIA 

Registration for the 2019 LSST Project and Community Workshop is now closed, with 301 people registered for the event. Book your hotel at this link before July 22 in order to receive the LSST 2019 room rate. 

Save the date: The LSST Project will host a workshop on December 2-4, 2019, in the Princeton, NJ area, on the topic of data processing for LSST. The goal of the workshop is to engage the community in the choice and development of LSST algorithms. It will include presentations from the Project on the current status of LSST algorithms and pipelines, and unconference sessions to encourage open discussion. For additional information and updates, visit the workshop webpage. 

Viewers enjoyed clear skies above Cerro Pachón during the total solar eclipse on July 2nd; photos taken of the eclipse over the LSST observatory are available in the LSST Gallery. The next total solar eclipse, also visible from Argentina and Chile, will occur in 2020.

The Primary/Tertiary (M1M3) mirror surrogate and the M1M3 cell have arrived safely on the summit of Cerro Pachón. Both pieces of equipment arrived in Coquimbo by ship, on the BBC Newcastle, at the end of June. The mirror surrogate was transported to the summit first, and arrived on July 3rd. The M1M3 cell followed, arriving on July 11th. More information can be found in this recent news item, and photos of the mirror surrogate and the cell in transit are available in the LSST Gallery.

The LSST Data Management (DM) team recently released Version 18.0.0 of the LSST Science Pipelines. This is the latest periodic release, following 17.0.1 which came out in March. The new version incorporates a number of new features and bug fixes which are described in detail in the release notes at this link.

PERSONNEL NEWS

LSST is now accepting applications for several open positions, including IT Network Engineer, Software Engineer, and Education and Public Outreach Web Developer. Details about these opportunities and more are available on the LSST hiring website. 

UPCOMING MEETINGS with LSST INVOLVEMENT (those with asterisk* are LSSTC funded):

NOTICIAS DEL PROYECTO Y DE LA CIENCIA

La inscripción para el Taller Proyecto y Comunitario LSST 2019 ya está cerrada, con 301 personas registradas para el evento. Reserve su hotel en este enlace link antes del 22 de julio para recibir la tarifa LSST 2019 de la habitación.  

Guarde la fecha: El Proyecto LSST realizará un taller del 2 al 4 de diciembre de 2019, en el área de Princeton, NJ, sobre el tema del procesamiento de datos para LSST. El objetivo del taller es involucrar a la comunidad en la elección y el desarrollo de los algoritmos de LSST. Incluirá presentaciones del Proyecto sobre el estado actual de los algoritmos y la segmentación de procesamiento de datos (pipelines) de LSST, y sesiones de desconferencia para fomentar la discusión abierta. Para información adicional y actualizaciones, visite la página web webpage del taller.  

Los espectadores disfrutaron de cielos despejados sobre Cerro Pachón durante el eclipse solar total del 2 de julio; Las fotos tomadas del eclipse sobre el observatorio LSST están disponibles en la Galería de LSST LSST Gallery. El próximo eclipse total de sol, el cual también será visible desde Argentina y Chile, ocurrirá en 2020.

El espejo sustituto del primario/terciario (M1M3) y la celda M1M3 han llegado a salvo a Cerro Pachón. Ambos equipos llegaron a Coquimbo en barco, en el BBC Newcastle, a fines de junio. El espejo sustituto se transportó primero al cerro y llegó el 3 de julio. La celda M1M3 lo siguió, llegando el 11 de julio. Las fotos del espejo sustituto y de la celda en tránsito están disponibles en la Galería de LSST LSST Gallery.

El equipo de Gestión de Datos (DM) de LSST recientemente lanzó la versión 18.0.0 de las LSST Science Pipelines. Esta es la más reciente publicación, después de 17.0.1 que se publicó en marzo. La nueva versión incorpora una serie de nuevas características y correcciones de errores que se describen en detalle en las notas de publicación en este enlace link.

NOTICIAS DEL PERSONAL

LSST ahora está aceptando postulaciones para varios puestos vacantes, entre ellos Ingeniero en Redes de TI, Ingeniero en Software y Desarrollador Web de Educación y Difusión pública. Los detalles sobre estas oportunidades y más están disponibles en el sitio web website de contratación de LSST.  

PRÓXIMAS REUNIONES CON LA PARTICIPACION LSST (aquellas con asterisco* son financiadas por LSSTC):

July 16, 2019 - This is a busy and exciting time on Cerro Pachón, as more large components of the telescope have now arrived at the summit. The LSST Primary/Tertiary (M1M3) mirror surrogate (the steel structure that will stand in for the glass mirror during testing) was transported from the port at Coquimbo to the summit in two pieces—it arrived at the LSST summit facility site on June 28th. The M1M3 mirror cell (the steel support structure for the mirror) stayed at the port in Coquimbo a few days longer, then followed the same route up the mountain, arriving on July 11. Both pieces of equipment were carried by Javier Cortez, SA transport vehicles. Like the LSST Coating Chamber and the M1M3 mirror, these very wide loads were driven slowly and carefully towards the summit over several nights, in what has by now become a well-rehearsed routine.

Meanwhile, inside the LSST summit facility building, preparations are underway for the coating of the Secondary Mirror (M2) in the Coating Chamber. To avoid overcrowding the area during this important activity, the M1M3 surrogate and the M1M3 cell be will be temporarily stored outside the building, protected from dust and weather by thick plastic wrap. After the M2 mirror has been coated and returned to its storage container, the surrogate and cell will be moved inside the building, and the M1M3 mirror cell will be installed on the M1M3 transport cart. The M1M3 surrogate, along with its support system, will then be integrated with the M1M3 cell and tested.