On a mountaintop in northern Chile, the world’s largest digital camera is preparing to power up.
Its mission is simple yet ambitious — to photograph the entire night sky in extreme detail and unlock some of the universe’s deepest secrets.
News Category: Media
‘We have a telescope!’ Rubin Observatory construction team installs its huge mirror
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope in Chile has now been equipped with all three of its mirrors, plus a camera for good measure.
Tech leader Charles Simonyi provides a wide-angle view of the telescope that bears his family name
With the ramping up of the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, Microsoft software architect Charles Simonyi joins a select group of scientists and technologists, policymakers and philanthropists who have had world-class telescopes and observatories named after them.
The biggest galaxies live in our universe’s supercluster ‘cities’
“Over the last decade, many astronomers, like me, have conducted painstaking studies to develop trust in machine learning.” Aritra Ghosh, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, is one of those astronomers.
Decoding the universe
UW astronomy undergrads use cutting-edge coding skills to help scientists make the most of discoveries from a revolutionary new telescope.
Stargazers advised to seek dark skies for optimal meteor shower viewing
The Perseid meteor shower will peak on the night of Sunday, Aug. 11. DiRAC’s James Davenport is featured.
Vera C. Rubin Observatory Project Includes Bremerton Resident
Erin Howard (DiRAC researcher, and member of the Rubin Observatory Data Management Team) is featured in this profile by the Kitsap Sun, by Audrey Nelson.
Huge Survey vs. Tiny Space Junk
As construction continues on the Vera Rubin Observatory, the skies above its mountaintop home grow more and more crowded following every rocket launch. Astronomers, conscious of the plans for mega-constellations of new satellites in the next few years, are rightfully worried: will these satellites and the tiny bits of debris that come with every deployment and collision affect the new telescope’s long-awaited, gigantic survey?
Read more about this research featuring DiRAC Fellow Meredith Rawls at AAS Nova!
Lucy in the Sky with Debris
Earlier this year, DiRAC Fellows Meredith Rawls, Dino Bektešević, and Colin Orion Chandler contributed interviews and satellite-streaked telescope images to an interdisciplinary research and visual art project on the visibility of orbital debris by artist Isabella Ong and curator Seet Yun Teng. The project included an exhibition during April 2024 in Singapore. Isabella originally reached out to Meredith and Dino due to their past work on Trailblazer, an initiative to collect images with known satellite streaks.
- Learn more about the project on their website, Lucy in the Sky with Debris.
- Contribute your own satellite observations to SatHub by joining the IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS).
