Observations#
Important
Rubin Observatory is still in an early operations phase.
The key objective is to improve the image quality and survey efficiency in order to start the ten-year LSST survey. The amount of science-grade data collected during this early phase will vary. For the general timeline during this phase, read more about the Early Science Program.
LSSTCam#
All observations were obtained with the LSST Camera (LSSTCam). Find a description, key numbers, filter bandpasses, and more in the LSSTCam documentation.
Citation: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory & NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (2025); The LSST Camera (LSSTCam) 
https://doi.org/10.71929/rubin/2571927
Alert stream status#
A live dashboard showing alert processing over the last twelve hours is available at ls.st/alert-stream-status.
Template coverage#
On May 21 2026, a significant expansion to the template coverage available to Alert Production was deployed, extending it beyond the original Deep Drilling Fields templates.
The best-covered subset of the templates generated as part of the forthcoming Data Preview 2 were selected. This increased the total sky area for alert production by more than a factor of ten (depending on the band).
Current template coverage can be visualized with the interactive alert production template coverage interface. More detailed programatic access to template coverage under development.
Filter |
Sky area (sq. deg) |
|---|---|
u |
53 |
g |
211 |
r |
905 |
i |
1444 |
z |
1197 |
y |
25 |
Additional template images will be generated incrementally during the early science phase, and information about template regions will be added here. Details are available in Template generation.
Survey strategy#
Information about the strategy and cadence for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time can be found at survey-strategy.lsst.io.
Nightly projection#
The projected Rubin schedule can be obtained via ObsLocTAP with the browser-based static viewer or all-sky map interface, and programmatically as demonstrated in the Commissioning tutorials.
Nightly reports#
Automated per-night reports are publicly available as scheduler viewer reports. Static files of LSSTCam visits metadata are available in the Commissioning tutorials. In the future, observational metadata will be available as queryable tables and documented under Data products.