Find Rubin Observatory technical docs and software.

Featured guides

Data Preview 1

Data Preview 1 contains image and catalog products from LSST Science Pipelines v29 processing of observations obtained with the LSST Commissioning Camera of seven ~1 square degree fields over seven weeks in late 2024.

Source repository
lsst/dp1_lsst_io

LSST Science Pipelines

The LSST Science Pipelines are designed to enable optical and near-infrared astronomy in the “big data” era. While they are being developed to process the data for the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (Rubin’s LSST), our command line and programming interfaces can be extended to address any optical or near-infrared dataset.

Source repository
lsst/pipelines_lsst_io

Rubin Science Platform

The Rubin Science Platform is an online service that enables you to access and analyze Rubin LSST data. This documentation will help you set up your user account and work with the Rubin Science Platform’s software and services.

Source repository
lsst/rsp_lsst_io

Documents

Search in Rubin Observatory technical documents, or browse by series:

CTN

Camera Technotes

DMTN

Data Management Technotes

DMTR

Data Management Test Reports

ITTN

IT Technotes

LDM

LSST Data Management

LPM

LSST Project Management

LSE

LSST Systems Engineering

PSTN

Project Science Team Technotes

PSTR

Project Science Team Test Report

RTN

Rubin Technotes

SCTR

Systems Integration, Testing, and Commissioning Test Report

SITCOMTN

Systems Integration, Testing, and Commissioning Technotes

SMTN

Simulations Technotes

SQR

SQuaRE Technotes

TSTN

Telescope & Site Technotes

* Documents held only in DocuShare are not yet part of the search results. Learn more.

Guides

Engineering Facility Database documentation

Documentation for the Engineering Facility Database (EFD) software components.

Guides for Data Management

Documentation for Data Management's internal tooling and procedures.

Guides for Telescope and Site

Documentation for Telescope and Site's software team.

Guides for scientists

Learn how to use the Science Pipelines and Science Platform with these guides.

Observatory documentation

Rubin Observatory software components and operational documentation.

Roundtable infrastructure documentation

Developer and operational documentation for the Roundtable platform, and services that run on Roundtable.

Science Pipelines documentation

Documentation for the LSST Science Pipelines and related software.

Science Platform infrastructure documentation

Developer and operational documentation for the Science Platform and Data Facility.

Simulations documentation

Documentation for the LSST Simulations software packages.

Have feedback?

There are many ways to get in touch:

Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a Federal project jointly funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, with early construction funding received from private donations through the LSST Corporation. The NSF-funded LSST (now Rubin Observatory) Project Office for construction was established as an operating center under the management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA). The DOE-funded effort to build the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera (LSSTCam) is managed by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC).

NSF and DOE will continue to support Rubin Observatory in its operations phase to carry out the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. They will also provide support for scientific research with the data. During operations, NSF funding is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF, and DOE funding is managed by SLAC under contract by DOE. Rubin Observatory is operated by NSF's NOIRLab and SLAC.

© 2025 Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc.