help for colleague who wants access to Rubin data

Support
#1

Hello - Please forgive my ignorance - I have been involved in planning science projects with Rubin data but I have basically no experience working directly with the data myself. I’m a faculty member at Indiana University and a member of the Rubin Stars, Milky Way, & Local Volume (SMWLV) collaboration, as well as the Star Clusters Working Group within the SMWLV collaboration. A staff member in our department who works with our campus observatory has asked me for help getting him access to some of the Rubin data. I have no idea whether I can provide such access or what the steps are for him getting it (to be honest, I had assumed that anyone at a U.S. institution would have access by just requesting it, since the U.S. is a partner), but he asked me to help him find out what he needs to do. He specifically is interested in working on the data for the “Indiana asteroids”, which I believe are asteroids that Frank Edmondson and others at Indiana U. were involved in identifying and tracking, at some point in the past history of our department.

My colleague forwarded me an email he says he got from the Gemini Observatory that has instructions about how he can get access to the Rubin data. The email instructions include this statement: “Ask your department’s Rubin PI if you have been added to the lsst-users or data-rights group.”, and he was assuming I could help him because I’m the one faculty member in our department who is a member of a Rubin science collaboration or working group. But I really don’t know whether that means I’m a “Rubin PI”, and I wouldn’t have thought so! So I’m not sure if I can help him get the access he wants.

I can forward the entire contents of the Gemini email he forwarded to me, but I thought I’d start by outlining the issue, and see what other information might be needed in order for someone to get us going in the right direction.

Again, forgive my total ignorance about how all of this is supposed to work - I’d appreciate any help you can provide.

Thanks,
Katherine Rhode
Department of Astronomy
Indiana University

#2

Instructions for how to request an account are at Getting an account on the RSP — Rubin Science Platform. Anybody who is a student or scientist at a U.S. or Chilean institution is a Rubin data rights holder, so the discussion about “Rubin PIs” and such is not relevant in this case (that is for International In-Kind Contributors).

If the observatory staffer has an IU email address, I recommend they sign up with that email, as it makes it simple for us to verify their data rights status. After requesting an account, it typically will get approved within a couple days at most.

Do reach out if you have any further questions!