Rubin Numbers

28
Years from concept to completion
(1996–2024)

9
Years of active construction
(2015–2024)

27.6 ft / 8.4 m
Primary mirror diameter

39,000 lbs / 16,284 kg
Primary mirror weight

62 tons / 56,250 kg
Full telescope weight (including the camera)

6746 lbs / 3060 kg
Camera weight

9.6 square degrees
Size of images on the sky
(about the area covered by 40 full moons)

3200 megapixels
Resolution of a single image

30 seconds
Exposure time of a single image

~2000
Number of science images every night

~5.5 million
Number of science images in the full ten-year LSST

6
Camera filters

350-1050 nanometers
Total wavelength range of the filter set
(near-ultraviolet to infrared)

20 terabytes (20,000 gigabytes)
Amount of data collected each night

60 petabytes (60,000,000 gigabytes)
Total amount of data collected in ten-year survey

~2 million
Images in ten-year survey

60 seconds
Time between image capture and alert generation

~10 million
Alerts per night

The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will image the entire visible sky from Cerro Pachón every few nights for ten years.

~100
Visits to each sky location per year

-72° to +12°
Declinations covered by the main survey

~38 billion
Objects detected during ten-year survey

• 20 billion galaxies
• 17 billion stars
• 10 million supernovae
• 6 million Solar System objects

Rubin Observatory is located at the El Peñón site, on the Cerro Pachón ridge, Coquimbo region, Chile.

30º14'40.68"S, 70º44'57.90"W
Site coordinates

8684 ft / 2647 m
Site altitude

18 in / 46 cm
Average annual rainfall

256
Average clear nights per year

~420
Rubin Builders (those who have worked on the Project for 2+ years)
as of March 2022

...
Countries involved in physical or software construction

~130
Full-time Rubin employees
80 in the United States / 50 in Chile

8
Science Collaborations

~2500
Science Collaboration members
as of March 2022

$419 million USD
Project earned value
as of January 2022