After seven years bringing astronomical transients to the astronomical community, there are big changes coming for Lasair. In the past, those transients were from the ZTF survey, a pathfinder of the LSST, at lower rates, fewer filter bands, and less depth. But finally the LSST alerts will be coming from the Rubin Observatory in the next few weeks and months.
There are two separate systems: [1] ZTF and [2] LSST. The sidebar will indicate which system you are logged into. Full documentation for the LSST site is at [3]. You will need to register again for the LSST site, your ZTF login will not work.
The LSST alerts are expected in the first weeks of September 2025, increasing to full stream through the end of the year. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, this coincides with major electrical work at the Edinburgh Advanced Computing Facility (10:00 27/08/2025 until 10:00 16/09/2025) and both Lasair sites will be down. Also, Rubin will be off-sky for a month for Sept 22 - Oct 24 for dome work. However, we expect to return with both ZTF and LSST in the autumn, with alerts flowing into both. Information about moving your science from ZTF to LSST is in [4] and [5] below. The LSST survey will be shadowed by ZTF [6] in the part of the sky visible from both Cerro Pachon and Palomar.
Please follow the Lasair Blog [7] for information both scientific and technical. All future information about Lasair will be distributed via the blog. To do so, click the bell-shape symbol at the right of the web page, and choose “Watch”. Please also consider contributing an article, it is a splendid way to advertise your Lasair related work.
For questions, you must use the Lasair support section of the Rubin Community Forum [8], so that answers are available to all. You can also write to lasair-help at mlist.is.ed.ac.uk. Please acknowledge your use of Lasair as in [9].
from The Lasair Team
Roy Williams, Ken Smith, Gareth Francis, Dave Young, Stephen Smartt, Andy Lawrence, Terry Sloan
[1] https://lasair-ztf.lsst.ac.uk
[2] https://lasair-lsst.lsst.ac.uk
[3] Lasair: A UK Alert Stream Broker
[5] Lasair-LSST for users of Lasair-ZTF
[6] ZTF News - ZTF receives more funding to work in tandem with Vera Rubin
[7] Lasair Blog - Rubin Observatory LSST Community forum
[8] Lasair - Rubin Observatory LSST Community forum
[9] Acknowledgements