Monthly Archives: June 2025

Night of the Trifid, the Virgo, and so much more to come: First Light at the Vera Rubin Observatory

The eagerly-anticipated Vera Rubin Observatory has come online and the First Light images are stunning.  A 3+ gigapixel camera behind an 8-m combined primary/tertiary mirror will survey the full southern sky every three nights for ten years.  It will see broadly, it will see deeply, and detect changes subtle and dramatic for other telescopes to zoom onto.  This is a revolution.  Dr. Rubin must be smiling!

Excerpts from Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae. Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

 

Annotated Virgo Cluster. Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory