Rubin Dome Fly-around

Have you seen the dome on Rubin Observatory lately? Come fly with us and get a drone’s eye view of the dome’s reflective surface, which was first installed in 2022.

Although it looks great, Rubin’s dome isn’t shiny just to get the attention of passing drones. Studies have shown that when it comes to nighttime astronomical observatories, reflective surfaces mean better observing conditions.

White surfaces are better at reflecting heat during the day, but at night they cool down quickly and radiate a lot of heat into the air above—too much heat, in fact, if you’re observing the sky above. If you’ve ever seen the air shimmer above a road on a hot day, you can imagine how unstable air above an observatory would affect images taken by the telescope.

Reflective surfaces are still pretty good at reflecting heat during the day, and they don’t cool off as much when temperatures drop at night. The reflective finish on Rubin’s dome means less heat will be radiated into the air above the dome when night falls, and the air inside the dome will stay a little warmer. In the end, we want the temperature of the dome and all the air around it (inside and outside) to stay as steady as possible, which will help make Rubin Observatory images as clear and crisp as they can be.