A brief update of SSSC (Solar System Science Collaboration) happenings over the past month. A more detailed version will be sent out on the SSSC listserv.
SST Solar System Data Products Flyer - Mario Jurić has created a summary handout which provides an overview of LSST Solar System Data Products. You can find a copy here.
Publications Policy -The publication policy committee: Henry Hsieh, Mario Juric, Kat Volk, Colin Snodgrass, Matthew Knight, Padma Yanamandra-Fisher,and myself with help from Eric Eric Christensen have come up with a full first draft of the SSSC publication policy that has been sent around to the collaboration for feedback.
LSST Cadence Optimization White Papers - 8 white papers were submitted with SSSC members contributing. You can find the list and links to the white papers here.
Science Advisory Committee (SAC): Renu Malhotra has stepped down as one of the LSST SAC members representing Solar System/planetary science. Many thanks to Renu for her service. On December 1st, Meg Schwamb, SSSC Co-chair, has joined the SAC.
Save the date: 2nd LSST Solar System Readiness Sprint will be held in Chicago, IL at the Adler Planetarium on June 4-6, 2019 - More details to come over the coming months. The SSSC Co-Chairs are currently looking at opportunities to fund travel costs for some participants.
LSST Townhall at AAS - An LSST Town Hall has been approved for the 233rd AAS Meeting, January 6-10 in Seattle, WA on Wednesday, January 9 from 7:30-8:30 p.m.
Workshop Relevant to LSST Solar System interests: Centaur Exploration Workshop: A workshop addressing the scientific importance and space exploration relevance of active centaurs, with a specific focus on mapping knowledge gaps and paths forward. Sprint 2019 Further details at https://cew2019.arc.nasa.gov/
Workshop Relevant to LSST Solar System interests: Python in Astronomy 2019, to be held 29 July - 2 August 2019 at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, USA. Registration deadline is January 31, 2019. More details at http://openastronomy.org/pyastro/2019/
Open orb now installable via conda - From Mario Jurić: There are now packages for macOS and Linux available form conda-forge (built for Py 2.7, 3.6 and 3.7). If you want to install it on your machine, and don’t have conda-forge set up already, I suggest to use this incantation: conda install -c defaults -c conda-forge openorb It comes with DE430 by default, while DE405 and BC430 can be added by installing the openorb-data-de430 and openorb-data-bc430 packages, respectively. Let me know if you uncover any issues (open an issue at https://github.com/conda-forge/openorb-feedstock)! And thanks to Mikael & co. for writing and maintaining OpenOrb (incl. quickly merging the patches that made the packaging possible)!
Happy New Year!