✍️ Rubin #CommissioningNotes, entry 2️⃣: when you turn it on and it works 🤌
Initial tests with Rubin's test camera, ComCam, showed the telescope was already nearly aligned before even looking at the sky — a testament to decades of work! With further testing, our team continued to improve data quality🥳
There's months of work ahead to refine Rubin's systems. The team's focus right now is the "active optics" systems that help support the telescope's mirrors and maintain the precise shape needed for crisp images.
For more details, catch up on these recent updates from earlier this month!
🔗 (Nov. 1): https://community.lsst.org/t/2024-11-01-on-sky-commissioning-update/9514
🔗 (Nov. 8): https://community.lsst.org/t/2024-11-08-on-sky-commissioning-update/9534
As announced, on Thursday 24 October 2024, on-sky data taking began with the engineering test camera for commissioning (ComCam) installed on the Simonyi telescope. In a complicated system, many hardware and software systems must work all together. Decades of effort paid off: the telescope optical alignments were remarkably close to optimal before even looking at the sky, with the ComCam focal plane within about 1mm of being in-focus, and the initial model for gravity-induced distortions of the m...
Rubin Observatory