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The Vera C. Rubin Observatory (VRO or Rubin Observatory, earlier called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, LSST) is an 8-meter Eisenberg-Pearson (or modified Paul-Baker) reflector telescope currently (September 2025) being commissioned on the El Peñón peak in Chile, which saw first light in June 2025. Plans are to begin surveying by the end of 2025. Forming the mirrors began in 2008 and work at the site began in 2014. It has 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 is to produce, automated processing is necessary, inducing efforts to encourage development, such as the Photometric LSST Astronomical Time-series Classification Challenge (PLAsTiCC).
The name Vera Rubin Observatory was adopted in 2019 and the telescope itself was named Simonyi Survey Telescope in 2024 (with the name Vera Rubin Observatory also including the telescope's location, housing, etc.). The earlier name and abbreviation, Large Synoptic Astronomical Survey Telescope (LSST), remained as the name of the telescope itself until its new name was adopted, and later, the name Legacy Survey of Space and Time (i.e., LSST) was coined for the observatory's survey project.