NSF NOIRLab

We’re thrilled to announce that last Friday Rubin Observatory celebrated a dedication ceremony for the Simonyi Survey Telescope! 🤩 The dedication ceremony recognizes the important financial support of Charles and Lisa Simonyi through the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, which provided a $20 million gift in 2008 that enabled construction of the telescope’s mirrors. This event was held at the Rubin Observatory Summit Facility on Cerro Pachón in Chile and was attended by the Simonyi family, Rubin Observatory leadership, representatives of NSF and DOE, and other guests. Rubin Observatory, with the Simonyi Survey Telescope and LSST Camera at its core, is poised to give us the fullest, most exquisitely detailed view of the cosmos to date. Once online in 2025, it will be operated by NSF NOIRLab and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and conduct the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), capturing unprecedented images of the night sky and enabling transformational discoveries. Read more in the press release: https://lnkd.in/ex_k_u57 📷: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/M. Paredes 📷: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/A. Pizarro D.

🌌 Celebrating 5 years of groundbreaking discoveries at NOIRLab! 🎉On June 2020, astronomers discovered the second most distant quasar ever found, using the international Gemini Observatory and National Science Foundation (NSF) Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. ✨ It is also the first quasar to receive an indigenous Hawaiian name, Pōniuāʻena. The quasar contains a monster black hole ⚫, twice the mass of the black hole in the only other quasar found at the same epoch, challenging the current theories of supermassive black hole formation and growth in the early Universe 🤯. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ef8dg2qN Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld #astronomy #quasar #science #telescope

Look up, way up ✨! The Milky Way flows across the southern hemisphere’s night sky in this image of Gemini South, one half of the International Gemini Observatory. Supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab, Gemini South resides on the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile 🇨🇱. 🔭Gemini South is operating its laser guide star, which is used by its advanced adaptive optics system to reduce the blurring of images that’s caused by Earth’s atmosphere. ✨Can you some iconic constellations? Centaurus, Crux, and Canis Major can be spotted in this image. 🌀To the left of Gemini South under the Milky Way are two satellite galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Petr Horálek, the photographer, is a NOIRLab Audiovisual Ambassador. Download the high resolution version of this image here: https://lnkd.in/ejmvjF3r Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Horálek (Institute of Physics in Opava) #astronomy #telescope #science #universe

🚨BIG NEWS: After 15 years of construction, Rubin has a complete telescope! Last week, summit staff successfully installed Rubin Observatory's combined primary/tertiary mirror 🤩, marking a major milestone in the 15 year construction journey. With all three mirrors and the commissioning camera now in place, Rubin officially has a complete telescope! What’s next? Getting the telescope on-sky to #CaptureTheCosmos 🌌 This isn't the telescope's final form though. This iteration has the commissioning camera — a smaller 144-megapixel version of Rubin's huge, 3200-megapixel camera — which is used for testing and troubleshooting. Rubin's LSST Camera, the biggest digital camera in the world will be installed early next year after the summit staff complete the next round of tests. Huge shoutout to the amazing #RubinTeam and summit staff for their dedication and hard work 💫🔭. Once in operation, Rubin will be operated by NSF NOIRLab and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Come join our team! ✨ We are hiring a Senior Administrative Assistant. The selected candidate will support the Rubin Observatory by providing a variety of high-level administrative functions. Apply here: https://ow.ly/U6ms50TEAs0 #JobOpening #NowHiring #AdministrativeAssistant #AdminJobs

Calling all volunteers! We are launching Exoasteroids citizen science project! 🤩 Have you ever wondered what might happen to our Solar System in a few billion years? The Sun☀️ will eventually turn into a white dwarf consuming the inner planets along the way. With the help of volunteers, this project aims to identify white dwarfs that have changed in brightness over the past decade. 📷NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/M. Zamani & M. Kosari (NSF NOIRLab)/P. Marenfeld Read more: https://ow.ly/nkUL50TCMgp #citizenscience #astronomy #universe #science #cosmo

We're celebrating NOIRLab’s fifth anniversary by highlighting some of the top discoveries made by astronomers with telescopes at NOIRLab sites 🤩, starting with the incredible Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at National Science Foundation (NSF) Kitt Peak National Observatory which has created the world's largest 3D map of the Universe. 🌀Since beginning its survey of the sky in 2021 DESI has observed a new set of 5000 galaxies every 20 minutes, totaling more than 100,000 galaxies per night, in its quest to create the largest 3D map of the Universe ever. Read more in the press release here: https://lnkd.in/ei4eEFAR Credit:DESI Collaboration/KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Horálek/R. Proctor #astronomy #science #NOIRLab #galaxies #universe #cosmo

🤩 Since opening in 1964, the Kitt Peak National Observatory Visitor Center has welcomed more than two million guests to the mountain in its mission to inspire a sense of wonder and awe about the Universe. 🎉 Check out how we celebrated our anniversary 👉 https://lnkd.in/eqRRPfzH

When an exciting "multi-messenger" event happens in the Universe, such as a supernova, it can be a challenge for astronomers to coordinate follow-up observations from multiple optical observatories across the globe. Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Center for AstroPhysical Surveys (CAPS), in collaboration with NSF NOIRLab and Las Cumbres Observatory, these organizations will build a service called HEROIC that allows researchers to coordinate their astronomical results in almost real time. The first NOIRLab telescopes that will be included in HEROIC are the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and the twin International Gemini Observatory telescopes. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dFAsmkcB 📷: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld #astronomy #science #universe

🎉Today is NOIRLab’s fifth anniversary! We are celebrating with this DECam image of the 🌹Rosette Nebula taken at National Science Foundation (NSF) Cerro Tololo Inter American Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. The vibrant hues of red, gold and blue really steal the show! That’s because the stars from the open cluster at its center, NGC 2244, emit a lot of ultraviolet radiation, excavating the Rosette Nebula’s core and causing the surrounding hydrogen gas to glow an array of brilliant colors. Don’t miss the shadowy features that line the nebula’s nucleus👤! Look for the dark trunk-like pillars, these are referred to as elephant trunks. Can you spot the Wrench Trunk? It’s towards the upper right of the central cluster. 🎉Celebrating 5 years of NOIRLab and many discoveries to come. Learn more in our press release: https://lnkd.in/eGJP7_U8 Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), D. de Martin & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) #astronomy #science #nebula