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Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

rubinobservatory.org

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Re: Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

#111

Post by spacecadet »

aragilar wrote: post #107
spacecadet wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We got DOGE instead of using $100k of tax dollars making this into a super nice public mobile app...

While it would be cool to make a mobile app for this, having used both the tech stack behind this site (it's open source, and really great), and written a mobile app with a similar tech stack, $100k will get you one, but it's going to be a pain to debug all the various niggles around various devices, so you'll need at least double that to make a robust one (and then the question is, do you just go native and reimplem…

Im not typically this person, but hacker news is just more and more "allow me to tell you", buddy I have 20 years experience building mobile apps... including against scientific, open source, and plain old hack-AF platforms...

Re: Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

#112

Post by RALaBarge »

japhyr wrote: post #15
-warren wrote: post #13

Counter-rotating spiral galaxies. Super neat! https://skyviewer.app/embed?target=186.66721+8.89072&fov=0.2...

That is interesting! They look like they're roughly in the same plane. Is it safe to assume they're roughly in the same plane, or could they be really distant along the line of sight? The similarity in size makes me think they are, but I don't have any reason to be confident in that judgment.

I believe there would be a difference in their red/blue signatures if they were moving relative to each other, but as you say they clearly are on the same plane

Re: Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

#113

Post by myrmidon »

andruby wrote: post #102
myrmidon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These numbers are not what I expected at all. So you could actually make an argument that to a country like the US, full 100% reliable asteroid protection is only worth like $50M/year (even if an impact means full extinction)? So if upkeep for a detection/deflection system costs more than that we'd be "better off" just risking it?! Thats insane. I would have expected this number to be much higher than $50M/year.

The economists calculated the value of 1 life. The calculation might be different if it extinguishes the whole of humanity (and thousands of other species). In a way, it also presents all future human lives. Should we include those?

I don't believe that this would change the outcome much: It seems hard to argue that preservation of a nonhuman species would be worth more than a million lives (=> negligible) and assuming global loss of all human life is already unreasonably pessimistic in my view-- (e.g. the Chicxulub impactor would not have achieved this).

I also think that fully accounting for multi-generational consequences is murky/questionable and not really something we do even in much more obvious cases: Eligible people deciding against having children are not punished for depriving future society of centuries of expected workyears, and neither are mothers/fathers rewarded for the reverse.

But even if you accounted for losing 3 full generations and some change (for biodiversity loss), that still leaves you in the ~$200M/year range.

Currently we don't have reliable asteroid deflection capability at any price (but it would be technically somewhat in reach), but just imagine a future NASA budget discussion that goes "we're gonna have to mothball our asteroid deflector 3000 because it eats 5% of yearly NASA budget and thats just not worth it"-- that could be the mathematically correct choice, which confounds me.

Re: Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

#114

Post by 0x0203 »

frontfor wrote: post #109
0x0203 wrote: post #106

Why do the brighter objects have the four way cross artifact? My (apparently incorrect) understanding was that those types of artifacts were a result of support structures holding reflecting mirrors on a telescope. But this camera just has a "standard" glass lense with nothing obstructing the light path to the sensor.

It’s a reflecting telescope, not a camera with a glass lens.

Ah, thanks. I had seen a bunch of hype about the camera itself (which is on its own very impressive) and assumed that was the complete device. Didn't realize it was part of a larger telescope.

Re: Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

#115

Post by gregw2 »

dekhn wrote: post #68
WD-42 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…they do the science

I've worked on quite a few large-scale scientific collaborations like this (and also worked on/talked to the lead scientists of LSST) and typically, the end groups that do science aren't the ones handling the massive infrastructure. That typically goes to well-funded sites with great infrastructure who then provide straightforward ways for the smaller science groups to operate on the bits of data they care about. Her…

Why move the data? Why not just enable permissions on cloud sharing a la Snowflake or iceberg?

Re: Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

#116

Post by aragilar »

runako wrote: post #32

Every set of deep field imagery reminds me that any point of light we see could be a star, a galaxy, or a cluster of galaxies. The universe is unimaginably vast. For observatories like Rubin, is there a plan for keeping them open after the funding ends? Is it feasible for Chile to take over the project and keep it going? On a practical note, what happens to a facility like this if one day it's just locked up? Will it…

There are already facilities like this (obviously not as new as Rubin) degrading due to funding, but this is because there's usually no better purpose for them. Space monitoring has been used in the past as a second life for facilities (outreach too), but ~1m class telescopes are good enough now that networks of them are better than a 40+ year old telescope. It's also worth noting bits can be reused: buildings gutted and repurposed, telescopes/instruments moved/sold on, etc.; but the real issue is having the staff to look after these places, and many older facilities are not always as amenable to automation as people might like (especially funding agencies).

Arecibo was about 60 years old for comparison when it collapsed, but there are lots of faculties that are effectively ships of Theseus, with new instruments coming in over time which refresh the faculty (and when that stops happening, then you get concerned).

Re: Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

#117

Post by 0x0203 »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #82

Check out this video: https://rubinobservatory.org/gallery/collections/first-look-... Incredible.

For anyone that hasn't clicked the link, it shows that in just a few days, the observatory has already found over 2000 new asteroids. That is indeed very impressive.

Re: Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

#118

Post by prawn »

jcims wrote: post #42
perihelions wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are NGC 4411 a+b and they're indeed right next to each other, https://noirlab.edu/public/images/iotw2421b/ ( "thought to be right next to each other — both at a distance of about 50 million light-years" )

What's going on directly above with what looks to be 3-4 galaxies interacting?

"like NGC 4410, above them in this image. The four interacting galaxies of that system are connected by tidal bridges, created by the gravity of each galaxy pulling on the others in the system."

Re: Vera C. Rubin Observatory first images

#119

Post by jpizagno »

dekhn wrote: post #8

I really like the Rubin because I think a lot of people focus too much on "deep" seeing (IE, looking at individual or several objects with very high magnification only once). The Rubin does much more "wide" seeing and this actually produces a ton of useful data- basically, enough data to collect reliable statistics about things. This helps refine cosmological models in ways that smaller individual observations cannot…

You worked on the design? That is interesting. I worked on the simulating the LSST , back in 2008 to 2010. The goal of which was to test the data reduction software. We were on the Image Simulation team.

It is surreal to see LSST/Rubin finally get first light.

Even more interesting to see who is still working on LSST, and who is not.

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