Talk:Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Now that Rubin has started taking data, I think we'd be better off moving the "Comparison with other sky surveys" to another page, something like [List_of_largest_optical_reflecting_telescopes], but more for surveys. We're going to start having a lot more Rubin-specific information here, as more data is released and papers are published. This kind of comparison is useful, but deserves its own page, instead of just living here. Thoughts? - Parejkoj (talk) 19:53, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Similarly I think a lot of the content in Construction Progress and Overview needs to be spun out. Maybe "Vera C. Rubin Observatory planning"? For example the Image data processing is speculative details and probably should not have been included in the encyclopedia in the first place. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:24, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

The article lists comparisons with other surveys, including PanSTARRS, but doesn't actually say much about how those compare to LSST. That includes performance or, for lack of actual performance data, predicted performance. For example, Pan-STARRS#Solar System, referring to from 2006 (without explicitly citing it, I think), states that PanSTARRS is expected to find about 100,000 Jupiter trojans, at least 20,000 Kuiper belt objects, and (from the original source) about 10 million main belt asteroids, during the first ten years of operation (2010-2020). It ended up discovering about 5% of that. LSST, in comparison, expects to find 3.7 million main belt asteroids (or >5 million, depending on whose prediction you take) and 32,000 trans-Neptunian objects, with most of those being found during the first year. Renerpho (talk) 23:35, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Before this page becomes monstrous, we should start planning to split it into sensible sub pages. Perhaps one (or two) for design and construction, one for the full historical context, one for comparison with others and one for a bigger gallery. Thoughts? Tayste (edits) 19:51, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes see above "Move comparison with other sky surveys to elsewhere?" However I think 5 more articles would be way too many. I suggest starting small, with just "Construction Progress and Overview" split. That section and the corresponding images would probably solve most of the issues. The Comparison section should be merged with Astronomical survey as noted by Parejkoj.

As for monstrous we simply need to decide that this is not a repository of favorite images. The images should be strictly limited to ones notable to the observatory. The first released image makes the cut. None of the current 4 in the observations gallery address the observatory's unique mission and thus can be cut at any time. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:20, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes there are already near a hundred Rubin images on WP pages. I was proceeding with taking interesting images out of the category 'Vera C. Rubin Observatory first look images' but this is an arbritary process. I've got a couple more to add to Commons that are too big at the moment. Anything more than 12 in the Gallery Observations section could begin to look cluttered, but as yet readers do not know where to look for the the vast majority of the most interesting pics. There isn't an article called "Hubble Space Telescope images" though, apart from List of Hubble Space Telescope anniversary images. I don't agree however that there should be only one 'first look' image, at least until another article is established. Richard Nowell (talk) 12:25, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Sorry if I was unclear. I did not say there should be only one first look image. My point is that the current image "Trifid and Lagoon nebulae.jpg" was sourced as the first release. That makes it unique among the observations in the page.

Image selection should not be arbitrary. Images selected should be encyclopedic and verifiable. "Interesting images" is not our game. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:27, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

You're right that images shouldn't be down to someone's idea of interesting. We might be ahead of ourselves though, in that images of static objects such as galaxies will only be available as a release once a year, (see Data Products). So it is unlikely that there will suddenly be a deluge of images this year or perhaps next. Within the article, there is a reference to public data not been available for 2 years after the initial images. Images from moving objects have a different release schedule. Richard Nowell (talk) 08:21, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

@Phantomdj per WP:RETAIN citations styles should not be changed without discussion. Was there a decision to make this change? Johnjbarton (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

There wasn't, and I'm sorry. I only realized that a discussion was supposed to happen after I made the change. What should be done? I'd be happy to undo the changes. Phantomdj (talk) 00:52, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

I guess it's ok if no one else complains. The list-defined references look nice at first but as articles change the new citations are often not added to the list so eventually we have a mix. Unfortunately the editing tools like WP:Proveit don't support list defined references. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:59, 19 April 2026 (UTC)