UK Involvement in LSST: Phase B (Exeter component)
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Planned Impact
Support for UK involvement in LSST, through funding the LSST:UK Science Centre (LUSC), can generate societal and economic impact under the following five headings:
1. Enhancing the research capacity, knowledge and skills of enterprises working on "Big Data" issues being incubated within the Higgs Centre for Innovation.
The Phase B LUSC Data Access Centre workpackage is co-located on the Royal Observatory Edinburgh campus with the Higgs Centre for Innovation, which is being funded to improve interaction between academia and industry in Space and Big Data, and to enhance economic impact in those two domains. We shall exploit that co-location to ensure that Big Data innovations within the LSST project in the US filter through to UK SMEs and that the challenging requirements of LSST inspire the development of novel Big Data techniques and technologies within the UK, as has been the case in the US.
2. Increasing public engagement with research through Citizen Science initiatives.
The LSST:UK Consortium will develop a Citizen Science platform based on the pioneering Zooniverse project, which currently has more than one million users doing real science online. Computational advances between now and the start of LSST operations will enable Citizen Science activities that greatly exceed what is currently possible, and perhaps most exciting is the prospect of involving Citizen Scientists in the classification of the million or more transient alerts that LSST will generate per night, placing the public at the heart of LSST's pioneering exploration of time-domain astronomy.
3. Enhancing cultural enrichment and quality of life through education & outreach activities.
The LSST:UK Consortium institutions have a wealth of experience in education and public outreach (EPO) activities, from running Open Days and exhibitions to CPD courses for school teachers to Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs). During Phase B we will develop an EPO programme, in conjunction with the very active LSST EPO team in the US.
4. Enhancing the research capacity, knowledge and skills of organisations through the employment of researchers with high-level expertise derived from working on LSST.
Over the 18-year lifetime of the LUSC programme, many students (e.g. from the STFC data-intensive science CDTs) and postdocs who have developed high-level expertise from working on LSST will pass from astronomy to the commercial sector, taking their valuable knowledge and skills with them. Particularly valuable will be the computational and statistical skills that will be readily applicable to the Big Data challenges prevalent in the public and private sector, and the expertise in thick CCDs developed through UK involvement in the LSST camera team.
5. Wealth creation, through the placing of construction contracts with UK companies.
The detector characterisation work started during LUSC Phase A, and proposed for continuation during Phase B, has included liaison with a UK company that has now signed a large contract to supply roughly half of the LSST detectors.
1. Enhancing the research capacity, knowledge and skills of enterprises working on "Big Data" issues being incubated within the Higgs Centre for Innovation.
The Phase B LUSC Data Access Centre workpackage is co-located on the Royal Observatory Edinburgh campus with the Higgs Centre for Innovation, which is being funded to improve interaction between academia and industry in Space and Big Data, and to enhance economic impact in those two domains. We shall exploit that co-location to ensure that Big Data innovations within the LSST project in the US filter through to UK SMEs and that the challenging requirements of LSST inspire the development of novel Big Data techniques and technologies within the UK, as has been the case in the US.
2. Increasing public engagement with research through Citizen Science initiatives.
The LSST:UK Consortium will develop a Citizen Science platform based on the pioneering Zooniverse project, which currently has more than one million users doing real science online. Computational advances between now and the start of LSST operations will enable Citizen Science activities that greatly exceed what is currently possible, and perhaps most exciting is the prospect of involving Citizen Scientists in the classification of the million or more transient alerts that LSST will generate per night, placing the public at the heart of LSST's pioneering exploration of time-domain astronomy.
3. Enhancing cultural enrichment and quality of life through education & outreach activities.
The LSST:UK Consortium institutions have a wealth of experience in education and public outreach (EPO) activities, from running Open Days and exhibitions to CPD courses for school teachers to Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs). During Phase B we will develop an EPO programme, in conjunction with the very active LSST EPO team in the US.
4. Enhancing the research capacity, knowledge and skills of organisations through the employment of researchers with high-level expertise derived from working on LSST.
Over the 18-year lifetime of the LUSC programme, many students (e.g. from the STFC data-intensive science CDTs) and postdocs who have developed high-level expertise from working on LSST will pass from astronomy to the commercial sector, taking their valuable knowledge and skills with them. Particularly valuable will be the computational and statistical skills that will be readily applicable to the Big Data challenges prevalent in the public and private sector, and the expertise in thick CCDs developed through UK involvement in the LSST camera team.
5. Wealth creation, through the placing of construction contracts with UK companies.
The detector characterisation work started during LUSC Phase A, and proposed for continuation during Phase B, has included liaison with a UK company that has now signed a large contract to supply roughly half of the LSST detectors.
People |
ORCID iD |
Timothy Naylor (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Wilson A
(2023)
A naive Bayes classifier for identifying Class II YSOs
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Wilson T
(2022)
A Parameterized Model for Differential Galaxy Counts at Any Wavelength
in Research Notes of the AAS
Wilson T
(2023)
Overcoming separation between counterparts due to unknown proper motions in catalogue cross-matching
in RAS Techniques and Instruments
Wilson Tom J.
(2021)
Solving the Catalogue Cross-Match Problem in the Era of LSST: The Effect of Unresolved Contaminant Objects and Proper Motions on Photometric Catalogues
in The 20.5th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun (CS20.5)
Description | COVID 19 Grant Extension Allocation University of Exeter (LSST:UK Phase B Exeter component) |
Amount | £34,830 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/V520536/1 |
Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 03/2021 |
End | 06/2021 |
Description | UK involvement in LSST: Phase C (Exeter component) |
Amount | £214,575 (GBP) |
Funding ID | ST/X001261/1 |
Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 03/2023 |
End | 03/2027 |
Description | Collaboration with Rubin Observatory |
Organisation | Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) |
Department | Vera C. Rubin Observatory |
Country | United States |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | We have contributed software as part of the UK in-kind contribution to LSST. |
Collaborator Contribution | The LSST Science Collaborations have provided scientific input. |
Impact | The final outcome will be our software and datasets derived by it. |
Start Year | 2021 |
Title | Macauff - LSST Cross-matching software |
Description | macauff, the python package for Matching Across Catalogues using the Astrometric Uncertainty Function and Flux, is a package for cross-matching photometric catalogues. Using the positions, uncertainties, and flux measurements of sources, as well as modelling of the level to which objects are affected by hidden, blended contaminants, macauff provides posterior probabilities of "many-to-many" matches and non-matches between the two catalogues being counterparts to one another. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2023 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | his is the software which will be used to match the LSST catalogues to other surveys. |
URL | https://github.com/lsst-uk/macauff |