UK researchers join Rubin commissioning team

A team of UK scientists have recently joined the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s System Integration Test and Commissioning (SITCom) group, as part of a major expansion of the observatory’s commissioning effort. We will be working seamlessly with US and international colleagues in the next 2 years as the construction project is completed and the telescope and its supporting infrastructure are commissioned.

UK contributions will focus on the active optics sub-system, and scientific verification of the system using on-sky data. The full announcement of the expanded SITCom team is available here https://sitcomtn-050.lsst.io/, and the latest high level timeline for the construction project and commissioning process is available here https://dmtn-232.lsst.io/.

General questions about the UK’s contribution to commissioning should be directed to Graham Smith (LSST:UK Commissioning Scientist), and the UK team is listed below:

 Active optics commissioning:
 * Gavin Dalton (University of Oxford and RALSpace), Will Sutherland (Queen Mary University of London).

 Scientific verification:
 * Aaron Watkins (University of Hertfordshire): low surface brightness science
 * Jon Loveday (University of Sussex) and Boris Leistedt (Imperial): angular clustering
 * Dan Ryczanowski and Graham Smith (University of Birmingham): strong lensing, image quality and difference imaging
 * Tom Wilson and Tim Naylor (University of Exeter): science validation of astrometry through cross-matching
 * Raphael Shirley (University of Southampton): multi-wavelength data fusion
 * Nicholas Walton (Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit): astrometric and photometric calibration
 * Daniel Weatherill, Jeff Tseng, Farrukh Azfar, Ian Shipsey (University of Oxford): detector characterization, camera slow control, and data quality monitoring