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Vera C. Rubin Observatory - Wikipedia

Vera C. Rubin Observatory

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The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, formerly the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), is an astronomical observatory in Coquimbo Region, Chile. Its main task is to conduct an astronomical survey of the southern sky every few nights, creating a ten-year time-lapse record, termed the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (also abbreviated LSST).123 The observatory is located on the El Peñón peak of Cerro Pachón, a 2,682-meter-high (8,799 ft) mountain in northern Chile, alongside the existing Gemini South and Southern Astrophysical Research Telescopes.4 The base facility is located about 100 kilometres (62 miles) away from the observatory by road, in La Serena.

The observatory is named for Vera Rubin, an American astronomer who pioneered discoveries about galactic rotation rates. It is a joint initiative of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science and is operated jointly by NSF NOIRLab and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.5

The Rubin Observatory houses the Simonyi Survey Telescope, a wide-field reflecting telescope with an 8.4-meter primary mirror.6 It uses a variant of three-mirror anastigmat to deliver sharp images over a 3.5-degree-diameter field of view. Images are recorded by a 3.2-gigapixel charge-coupled device imaging (CCD) camera, the largest camera yet constructed.7

Rubin is expected to catalog millions of supernovae,8 more than five million asteroids (including ~100,000 near-Earth objects), and image approximately 17 billion stars and 20 billion galaxies.9

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. Overbye, Dennis (11 January 2020). “Vera Rubin Gets a Telescope of Her Own – The astronomer missed her Nobel Prize. But she now has a whole new observatory to her name”. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 January 2020. Retrieved 11 January 2020. ↩

  2. “NSF-supported observatory renamed for astronomer Vera C. Rubin”. www.nsf.gov. 7 January 2020. Archived from the original on 8 January 2020. Retrieved 7 January 2020. ↩

  3. “Survey Cadence Optimization Committee’s Phase 3 Recommendations”. pstn-056.lsst.io. 6 January 2025. Archived from the original on 19 March 2025. Retrieved 24 June 2025. ↩

  4. “Press Release LSSTC-04: Site in Northern Chile Selected for Large Synoptic Survey Telescope” (PDF) (Press release). LSST. 17 May 2006. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 September 2015. Retrieved 1 August 2015. ↩

  5. “Funding Information”. rubinobservatory.org. Archived from the original on 10 April 2025. Retrieved 10 April 2025. ↩

  6. Telescope, Large Synoptic Survey (12 June 2015). “LSST General Public FAQs”. Rubin Observatory. Archived from the original on 25 April 2020. Retrieved 11 September 2020. ↩

  7. “Camera”. LSST. 26 March 2013. Archived from the original on 30 July 2015. Retrieved 1 August 2015. ↩

  8. “NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Will Detect Millions of Exploding Stars”. Vera C. Rubin Observatory website. NSF NOIRLab. 22 January 2025. Retrieved 27 December 2025. ↩

  9. Walsh, Bryan (28 June 2025). “How the largest digital camera ever made is revolutionizing our view of space”. Vox. Retrieved 12 July 2025. ↩

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