Cover of Science. You know the Vera Rubin Observatory is a big deal when it makes the cover of Science magazine. In vol. 388, issue 6753 (19 June 2025): https://www.science.org/content/article/giant-all-seeing-telescope-set-revolutionize-astronomyDaniel Clery 18 Jun All-seeing eye p. 1256 10.1126/science.z3ptiml https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz8351Daniel Clery … Read More »Vera Rubin Of Late
Let’s check the New Astronomy issue for October (vol. 119). Yes, they’re up to October already: Wang, S. Yang, Y. Yuan, H. et al. CCD Photometric studies of two Primitive C-type main-belt asteroids: (51) Nemausa and (52) Europa 102391 .2025.102391Vaduvescu,… Read More »Note, Paper: See NEAs Overseas
Just over a week until the Vera Rubin Observatory’s First Look Event, June 23 (online presentation at 11:00 am Eastern Time). Observatory testing and calibration has peaked, and is now wrapping up loose ends, since… the remaining tasks are becoming… Read More »Vera Rubin Update (Mid-Jun 2025)
As part of the Vera Rubin survey project, tests and metrics should be used to hone the plan. Those metrics are now being used on a simulation of the sky survey. Try the homepage, https://sorcha.space . For papers describing these… Read More »Rubin Sim Given
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) will hold its biannual (Summer) meeting in Anchorage, Alaska this week. Even though this “general” meeting includes the sub-meetings of the Laboratory Astrophysics Division and Solar Physics Division, there’s still relevant content here for the… Read More »Summer AAS Meeting 2025 (Anchorage)
The June issue of Astronomical Journal (vol. 169 #6) brings us: B. T. Bolin, C. Fremling, M. Belyakov, et al. Keck and Gemini Characterization of Hayabusa2# Rendezvous Target 1998 KY26 303 adccbe(The DES Collaboration) Photometry of Outer Solar System Objects… Read More »Note, Paper: Eyes on Target
Commissioning of the Vera Rubin Observatory (Simonyi Telescope, LSSTCam, etc.) continues apace. Aside from glitches with a few CCDs in the detector array, and the Camera cooling system, things are looking good. How good? An outside review panel has surveyed… Read More »Vera Rubin Update: First Look Event
Commissioning of systems on the Vera Rubin Observatory continues. Tuning of the active optics systems (NOT adaptive optics) continues. This past week, both Alpha Centauri and Earth’s natural satellite became visible. These bright objects served as crude calibrators, allowing tests… Read More »Vera Rubin Update (Mid-May 2025)
…speaking of SiTian… The latest issue of Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (vol. 25 #4) is a special Issue: Pathfinder of the SiTian Project – Progress of Mini SiTian Huang, Y. Liu, J. Wu, H. et al. The Mini-SiTian Array: A… Read More »Note, Papers: SI on SiTian
In Experimental Astronomy (all-digital, no physical issues) vol. 59, #3: Xiang, W. Jia, P. Li, Z. An Optimization Framework for Wide-Field Small Aperture Telescope Arrays Used in Sky Surveys 32 s10686-025-10004-0 Covering the sky requires more than one telescope: in… Read More »Note, Paper: Better Net-Tels