We are so excited about this major milestone: Rubin Observatory successfully coated the 8.4-meter primary/tertiary mirror with a shiny, new layer of protected silver! Congrats to all of our colleagues✨
Read more: noirlab.edu/public/news/no…

When you finally get that shiny coating you wanted.... 🤩

Rubin Observatory's 8.4-meter mirror is officially, finally, a mirror! In a 4.5-hour process, the glass got its protected silver coating—and one step closer to being able to #CaptureTheCosmos

🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/coating-p…

🤔 #DYK The world’s largest digital camera is preparing to ship from SLAC to Rubin Observatory in Chile right now?!

Well, now you do.

#capturethecosmos #SLACexplains

What goes into preparing Rubin's 8.4-meter mirror glass to get its reflective coating? Quite a lot, it turns out!

Learn about the preparation process in Part 4 of the 'Making of Rubin 's 8.4-meter Mirror' ✨

Rubin's 8.4-meter two-in-one mirror was made in Arizona, but now it's in Chile...what happened in between?

Find out in part three of the 'Making of Rubin's 8.4-meter Mirror' ‼️🚢

#CaptureTheCosmos

The process of fabricating and polishing the glass structure for Rubin's two-in-one mirror took 7 years! So what went into it?

Find out in part two of the 'Making of Rubin's 8.4-meter Mirror' 🤩

#CaptureTheCosmos

The first step to building anything is designing it!

But how did a two-in-one mirror enter the designs for Rubin Observatory in the first place? 🤔

#CaptureTheCosmos

had the amazing opportunity to tour the beautiful Rubin Observatory this morning! incredible to see this project so close to completion—I can’t wait to see what they do on sky!

1. inside the dome! note the primary mirror is missing—it is being coated
2. Rubin has a cable drape rather than a cable wrap to prevent tangling, the telescope will rotate ~480°
3. some polaroids I took throughout the tour!
4. me with Rubin taken from its companion 1m telescope

Heard about the 'biggest digital camera ever' & wondered what it's for? Heard it was for a #telescope but not sure why? The Rubin Observatory will image the entire southern hemisphere sky in 6 different 'colors' every 3 nights! 🤯 Unprecedented amounts of data! #astronomy + #DataScience

Learn more about the incredible camera that’ll #CaptureTheCosmos ! 👇

Learn how Rubin Observatory will use six different colour filters to detect stellar streams that are around five times more distant than is currently possible.
rubinobservatory.org/news/rubin-rev… #astronomy

#GlobalAstronomyMonth is the perfect time to highlight Rubin Observatory! Currently under construction on Cerro Pachón in 🇨🇱, Rubin Observatory is an 8-meter-class telescope coupled to a 3200 megapixel camera –the world’s largest digital camera ever fabricated for optical astronomy!🧵⬇️

Astronomers are always looking up, trying to understand our place in this vast cosmos. That quest to understand only makes us appreciate this blue oasis we inhabit that much more.

On this #EarthDay , look up with us and celebrate the beautiful planet we call home 🌎🌍🌏

Over the next 10 years, the NSF Rubin Observatory will illuminate these glittering threads of stars — called stellar streams — which researchers believe could hold the key to understanding dark matter.💫bit.ly/4d6ttSS

📷: RubinObs/@NOIRLab /NSF/AURA /J. daSilva, M. Zamani