Workshops and Community Meetings

“From Data to Software to Science Workshop”

Travel support was provided by the LSST Corporation. The workshop was held March 28-30, 2022, in New York City and was organized by the LINCC Frameworks team, funded by the Schmidt Futures Foundation.

Hosted at the Center for Computational Astrophysics of the Flatiron Institute.

The workshop enabled the development of early LSST data, along with identified computational challenges, with commonalities, potential solutions, and collaborative efforts identified.  The goal is to synthesize this material into a white paper that would serve as the workshop deliverable and that will be of broad use to the community, supporting the further development of the new collaborations that will be established during the workshop.

LSSTC implemented an incredibly successful Enabling Science Call for Proposals on April 27, 2022 with a deadline of May 22, 2022.   

We were oversubscribed with 54 outstanding proposals, 35 were from LSSTC Institutional Members, a combination of graduate students and undergrads.

LSSTC and the Enabling Science Committee supported 12 undergraduates and 23 graduate students to attend and participate at the Project Community Workshop 2022 (PCW 2022) in Tucson, Arizona in August 2022.  Both of the graduate and undergraduate students presented a 30 second pitch at the poster pitch session. 

On the first day of the Project Community Workshop 2022 (PCW 2022), Ron Harris, NOIRLab Machine Shop Director, conducted an interesting and enlightening tour of the NOIRLab Machine Shop for the students.

The students were engaged and very excited about the machinery in the lab.  The NOIRLab Machine Shop Tour was a big success! 

 NOIRLab MACHINE SHOP

After the machine shop tour, the students attended another tour of the Caris Mirror Lab, conducted by Cathi Duncan, Development Manager. These mirrors represent a radical departure from the conventional solid-glass mirrors used in the past, producing a new generation of telescopes now exploring the universe in optical and infrared light.  

They have a honeycomb structure on the inside; made out of Ohara E-6 low expansion glass which is molded by melting it into a honeycomb interior while spin casting in a custom-designed rotating oven. 

Honeycomb mirrors offer the advantages of their solid counterparts - rigidity and stability - but they can be significantly larger, and dramatically lighter.