Rubin Observatory

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory (VRO or Rubin Observatory, earlier called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, LSST) is an 8-meter three-mirror anastigmat reflector telescope under construction on the El Peñón peak in Chile since 2014, first light projected (as of August 2024) for May 2025, with surveying to begin 4-7 months after that. Forming the mirrors began in 2008. It will have an especially wide field of view (3.5 degrees in diameter), with a 3.2 gigapixel camera that will take a 15-second exposure each 20 seconds, and will be automated to image all the sky within its view, repeatedly. Its aim is to identify transients, discovering solar system objects and detecting supernovae, and to gather light curve data. Given the amount of data it will produce, automated processing is necessary, inducing efforts to encourage development, such as the Photometric LSST Astronomical Time-series Classification Challenge (PLAsTiCC).

With the 2019 adoption of the name Vera Rubin observatory, both the old and new names are continue to be used: it is impractical to totally avoid a previous name as if it no longer exists, and even if the older name were never used, it would still remain necessary to be aware of both names to follow the project's history and development. Sometimes the two names are explained as Vera Rubin Observatory is the observatory and LSST is the telescope. More recently, LSST (for Legacy Survey of Space and Time) has been adopted as a name for the observatory's planned survey project.