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    • About
    • History
    • Who was Vera Rubin?
    • Construction Updates
    • Rubin Culture
      • Rubin in Chile
      • Cerro Pachón
      • Observatory Site Selection
      • Organization
      • Leadership
      • Science Collaborations
    • Funding Information
      • Work With Us
      • Jobs Board
    • Explore
      • How Rubin Works
      • Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)
      • Rubin Technology
      • Alert Stream
      • Rubin Numbers
    • Science Goals
    • Rubin Voices
    • Get Involved in Rubin Research
      • Activities, Games, and More
      • Space Surveyors Game
      • Make Your Own Rubin Voices Trading Card
      • Animated Video Series
    • Gallery
    • Slideshows
    • Construction Archive Gallery
    • Media Use Policy
    • News
    • Press Releases
    • For Media
    • Press Releases
    • For Scientists
    • Events and deadlines
      • Resources for scientists
      • Rubin Community Forum
      • Early Science Program
      • Workshops and seminars
      • Tutorials
      • LSST Discovery Alliance
      • Code of Conduct
      • Survey, instruments, and telescopes
      • Key numbers
      • The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST)
      • Instruments
      • Telescopes
      • Data products, pipelines, and services
      • Data access and analysis
      • Recent data releases
      • Alerts and brokers
      • Data processing pipelines
      • Future data products
      • Data Policy
      • Documentation and publications
      • Technical documentation
      • How to cite Rubin Observatory
      • Publication policies
      • Science Collaborations
      • Galaxies Science Collaboration
      • Stars, Milky Way, and Local Volume Science Collaboration
      • Solar System Science Collaboration
      • Dark Energy Science Collaboration
      • Active Galactic Nuclei Science Collaboration
      • Transients and Variable Stars Science Collaboration
      • Strong Lensing Science Collaboration
      • Informatics and Statistics Science Collaboration
    • Citizen Science
      • Committees and teams
      • Science Advisory Committee (SAC)
      • Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC)
      • Users Committee
      • Community Science Team (CST)
      • Research Inclusion Group
      • Project Science Team (PST)
    • Education
    • Education FAQs
    • Educators
    • Glossary
    • Investigations
    • Calendar

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Contact us

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science will 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 National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), under contract by DOE. Rubin Observatory is operated by NSF NOIRLab and SLAC.

NSF is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science. NSF supports basic research and people to create knowledge that transforms the future.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

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  1. For Scientists
  2. Resources for scientists
  3. Rubin Community Forum

Rubin Community Forum

The Rubin Community Forum provides traditional "helpdesk" functionality, but with the additional power of crowd-sourced solutions. It offers scalable, sustainable support for Rubin's unprecedentedly large science community.

Create an account

Everyone using the Rubin data products, services, and tools to do scientific research is welcome to create an account. Students are especially encouraged to use the Forum.

Visit the Rubin Community Forum to get started.

Ask a question and get support

Create a new topic in the Forum's Support category to ask a question about anything Rubin-related. All new topics in the Support category will be followed-up by Rubin staff. Beginners, students, and "naive" questions are all very welcome.

Learn how to ask a question in the Forum.

The power of crowd-sourced problem solving

Rubin data products and services will be used by thousands of scientists and students worldwide, and a traditional email-based "helpdesk" will not scale.

In order to enable crowd-sourced problem solving and build a self-sustaining Rubin science community, the Rubin Community Forum is built on the Discourse platform.

Everyone is encouraged to jump in to discussion threads and help by sharing their experience, knowledge, and solutions to others' questions.

Rubin Community Forum

Ask questions, get help, report bugs or errors, and join in discussions about Rubin Observatory and its data products, pipelines, and services.

Go to the Rubin Community Forum

Functionality and terminology

It is not necessary to know any of this before using the Forum - just jump in and get started.

But in case it's useful, here are some basics.

Banner

The main landing page of the Rubin Community Forum has an expandable banner (header) with instructions for how to use the Forum to ask questions, join discussions, and stay informed.

Categories

High-level themes to organize topics. Only Rubin staff can create new categories. Browse categories using the list that appears at right on the Forum's landing page.

Topics

A topic thread starts with a single post, which other Forum users can reply to. Topics are stored in categories. All logged-in Forum users can create new topics. All topics in the Support category are treated as support ("helpdesk") requests and are followed-up by Rubin staff.

Learn how to create a new topic.

Tags

A topic can have any number of tags, or none. Tags are useful as a secondary means of organization (after categories). All logged-in Forum users can create new tags when posting a topic.

Search

Click on the magnifying glass to search the Forum for topics by keyword, date, tag, etc.

Learn how to search the Forum effectively.

Profile

The attributes of a user's account, such as username, profile picture, and notification settings. To edit profile preferences click on the default profile picture in the circle at upper right, then the person icon.

Groups and trust levels

New Forum users start in the trust level 0 group, which limits some Forum functionality. Trust level increases automatically with Forum engagement.

Learn more about Discourse trust levels.

Joining other Forum groups is optional. Groups serve to identify Rubin staff teams, committees, and Science Collaborations.

See a list of all Forum groups.

Private messages

Public posts of topics for open discussion is encouraged as the primary mode of using the Forum, but private messages between users (and groups) are also possible.

Learn how to send a private (direct) message.

Flags and moderation

All Forum users can flag topics (or individual reply posts within a topic) for moderation for a variety of reasons (e.g., off-topic, spam, offensive). Rubin staff will take appropriate action.

Learn how and why to flag a post.

Tutorials

It is not necessary to learn all the details of Forum functionality before creating topics or posting replies, but for those who would like it, Discobot provides a hands-on tutorial.

Find many more topics about how to use the Forum.