The Vera C. Rubin Observatory just released its first few images (see “Ever-changing Universe Revealed in First Imagery From NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory.” Vera C. Rubin Observatory. June 23, 2025.)
One in particular stood out. Here is the Lagoon and Trifid Nebula as seen from the Rubin Observatory (Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory) compared with an image taken with FAS’s Seestar S30.
Update: At the October FAS meeting, several folks asked for more details. We did some research and discovered the following from the Observatory website.
- The Rubin Lagoon & Trifid Nebula image is a combination of 678 separate images taken over seven hours of observing time.
- The Rubin Observatory is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. It is operated jointly by NSF NOIRLab (managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy AURA) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (operated by Stanford University).
- The Observatory is located at 9,000 feet above sea level on the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile.
- The telescope has a single 8.4-meter primary mirror with a 3,200 Mp camera.
- The Rubin Observatory will conduct a ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Data will be available on an online portal called the Rubin Science Platform.
To find out more about Vera Rubin and the Observatory, see The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s website and FAS’s Astronomers Blog, Vera Rubin (The Astronomer and An Observatory).
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