It's not every day we get to throw a welcome home party 🎉
Last week marked a big construction achievement with the move of our 8.4-meter primary/tertiary mirror into the main observatory building! It'll now go through preparations to get its shiny silver coating ✨
The 62-ton piece of glass that will soon become Rubin Observatory's combined primary/tertiary mirror was unboxed at the summit this week and lifted onto its steel support cell! 🧵
A team from the @uarizona Richard F. Caris Mirror Lab made the trip to Chile to complete the lift using a custom-made vacuum lifter called a "spider" 🕷️
Next up: integrating the glass with the cell, and then moving it to the coating chamber to get its shiny silver coating!
And no, we didn't order the mirror in blue by mistake--that's a protective Opti-Coat layer that keeps the vacuum lifter from damaging the surface of the glass. It'll be removed before the mirror is coated!
When you finally get that shiny coating you wanted.... 🤩
Rubin Observatory's 8.4-meter mirror is officially, finally, a mirror! In a 4.5-hour process, the glass got its protected silver coating—and one step closer to being able to #CaptureTheCosmos
Scientists have found two interstellar objects so far: 'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov. With the Legacy Survey of Space & Time (#LSST), they'll find many more.
While it's hard to predict how many, one thing's for sure: Solar System science will enter a new era of discovery with Rubin!
With this achievement, construction of the NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory is nearing its final stretch! The LSST Camera will be installed on Rubin’s Simonyi Survey Telescope later this year.
In early 2025, the car-sized 3200-megapixel camera will begin to #CaptureTheCosmos in exquisite detail for Rubin’s 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time and enable countless scientific discoveries - from within our Solar System out to distant galaxies!
That feeling when you check a huge item off your to-do list...
Giant digital camera: ✅
Construction of Rubin Observatory's car-sized camera is officially complete at SLAC National Accelerator Lab! We're one step closer to being ready to #CaptureTheCosmos🌌
The Cosmic Mysteries Department....coming to a night sky near you* in 2025 ✨
Rubin Observatory is a new astronomical facility nearing completion in Chile. Over ten years, it will use a 3200-megapixel, car-sized digital camera to repeatedly image the sky every few nights🌌
Gear up, this one’s good. The Rubin Observatory dome officially rotated using its permanent gear system for the first time!
Until now, the dome moved with a temporary system that would only roughly position the dome as needed during construction. The new gear drive is what will precisely rotate the 600-ton dome into position throughout Rubin’s ten-year survey, due to start in 2025. And it has little vibration—important for the crisp images we all can’t wait for!
Rubin Observatory's telescope support structure is now ready for the full-size replicas of the 8.4-meter mirror and other optical components, including the stand-in for the giant 3200-megapixel camera! 🧵