Awarded projects

Collective Crystal 2021: Filter changer system for the LSST camera

December 22, 2022 - 10 min reading
Image in space

Starting in 2023, the Rubin Observatory telescope in Chile will photograph the southern sky systematically for ten years, producing the LSST survey. Equipped with the largest digital camera in the world and a robotic filter changer, this robust and very fast system, a real technical feat, is the result of a collaboration between five laboratories of IN2P3.

Discover the team's project

For the team, this is the culmination of a scientific and technical adventure that has lasted more than ten years. Buried in the heart of the largest digital camera ever built, the filter changer is one of the key parts of the LSST telescope camera. Installed at the Rubin Observatory in Chile, its mission will be to photograph the southern sky for a decade in order to make a 3D movie of the universe. The telescope will be able to detect billions of celestial objects and thus, in particular, to improve the knowledge on dark matter and dark energy. The filter changer is one of the many technological challenges taken up for the construction of the camera, which is able to cover a field on the sky corresponding to 40 times the full Moon.

The different filters allow to see the sky in different colors and to better establish the nature as well as the distance of celestial objects. A gain in speed was necessary to observe the variable phenomena in the Universe by changing filters several times a night. This is done with this robotic system of the LSST which, integrated inside the camera, will handle 5 giant filters, with a diameter of 75 cm and a weight of up to 40 kg, with a precision of a tenth of a millimeter. Assembled and validated in France, the filter changer has been installed on the camera and activated in late 2019 at Stanford University, SLAC laboratory, in the United States. It will take off for Chile in 2022, its final destination.

This unique project has led to the cooperation of different professions, from mechanics to computer science, including electrical engineering and instrumentation, within teams from five laboratories. This success is a showcase for CNRS engineering know-how and also opens up the scientific exploitation of LSST data to French researchers.

The collective crystal, a reward for research support teams for their innovative or remarkable collective project

Each year, the CNRS medals are awarded to researchers and staff who make an outstanding contribution to the institution's dynamism and reputation.

The collective crystal rewards teams of women and men, research support staff for their innovative or remarkable collective project.

Collective Crystal 2021: Filter changer system for Sabrina Nehmar's LSST camera © CNRS - 2021