When: November 14, 2017 @noon
Where: A214, Physics-Astronomy Auditorium (PAA)

Starting in the early 2020s, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will carry out a decade long survey of the southern sky. Offering a unique combination of breadth, depth and cadence, this survey will enable us to address some of the most profound questions in modern astronomy.

It will also present huge challenges: how can we collect, store, process and — most importantly! — understand the hundreds of petabytes of data which will be produced? How can we combine the statistical and algorithmic rigor needed to enable the next generation of precision cosmology with the speed and agility needed to identify and respond to transients and variable sources? How can we make vast volumes of data available to the community in a way that enables your particular science
case?

In this talk, I will briefly review the design and scientific goals of LSST, provide an update on the current status of construction, explore some of the algorithmic and data processing challenges that the LSST Data Management team faces, and describe the key role that members of the Department of Astronomy here at UW are playing in making it all possible.