In a ten-year survey, Rubin Observatory will deliver more than five million exposures, collecting over 50 petabytes of raw image data to produce a deep, time-dependent, multi-color movie of 30,000 square degrees of sky. The sequence, or cadence, with which these exposures are made is essential to achieving multiple scientific goals from a single survey, an important feature of the Rubin Observatory LSST concept. Read the community white paper on the LSST Observing Strategy in arxiv and contribute to the living document in GitHub.
Rubin Observatory will take data as pairs of back-to-back, 15-second exposures to aid in cosmic-ray rejection. This pair is called a visit - a single observation of a ten-square-degree field through a given filter. Designing the LSST survey requires ordering these visits in time and allocating them among its six filters so as to maximize the return on scientific goals in a fixed survey duration. Synthesizing the requirements to accomplish the four primary science objectives of Rubin Observatory,
results in the following constraints:
Finally, making uniform progress in time toward each of the scientific goals facilitates analyses made while the survey is still in progress.
In addition to Rubin Observatory's 18,000 deg2 main survey via its “universal cadence,” up to approximately 10% of Rubin observing time will be dedicated to other programs, including intensive observation of a set of Deep Drilling Fields. Deeper coverage and more frequent temporal sampling (in at least some of the LSST Camera's ugrizy filters) will be obtained for the Deep Drilling Fields than for typical points on the sky. The full Deep Drilling Field (DDF) program will address a broad range of science topics, including Solar System, Galactic, and extragalactic studies.
Science Book - Chapter 1: Introduction - An overview of the Rubin Observatory Project including its history, science goals, and system design.
Science Book - Chapter 2: LSST System Design - A description of the basic elements of the Rubin Observatory system design, with particular emphasis on elements impacting the science objectives.
Science Book - Chapter 3: LSST System Performance - A description of the essential characteristics of Rubin Observatory system performance.
Financial support for Rubin Observatory comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Cooperative Agreement No. 1258333, the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515, and private funding raised by the LSST Corporation. The NSF-funded Rubin Observatory Project Office for construction was established as an operating center under management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA). The DOE-funded effort to build the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera (LSSTCam) is managed by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC).
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an
independent federal agency created by Congress
in 1950 to promote the progress of science. NSF supports basic research and people to create knowledge that transforms the future.
NSF and DOE will continue to support Rubin Observatory in its Operations phase. They will also provide support for scientific research with LSST data.
Contact | We are Hiring | Business with Rubin Observatory