Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2021

29 MAY-JUNE 2021 ASTRO PUBLISHING (CTIO) in the Chilean Andes, a Pro- gram of NSF’s NOIRLab. Each week from 2013 to 2019, DECam collected thousands of images of the southern sky, unlocking a trove of potential cosmological insights. Once captured, these images (and the large amount of data surround- ing them) were transferred to NCSA for processing via the DES Data Management (DESDM) project. Using the Blue Waters supercom- puter at NCSA, the Illinois Campus T he Dark Energy Camera (DECam) focal plane consists of a science array of sixty-two 2048 x 4096 CCDs. Additionally, there are four 2048 x 2048 guider CCDs and eight 2048 x 2048 focus and alignment CCDs. The quantum efficiency of these LBNL- designed CCDs with their anti-re- flective coating is red optimized to be more than 90% at 900 nm and more than 60% over the range of 400-1000 nm. The Dark Energy Sur- vey CCDs were fabricated by Dalsa with further processing done by Lawrence Berkeley National Labora- tory (Berkeley Lab). They were then packaged and tested by the Depart- ment of Energy's (DOE) Fermilab. DECam was fabricated by the DOE. [DES/DOE/LBNL/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/A URA/R. Hahn] Cluster, and compu- tational systems at Fermilab, NCSA pre- pares calibrated data products for research and public consump- tion. It took approxi- mately four months to process one year’s worth of data into a searchable, usable catalog. The DES DR2 is hosted at the Com- munity Science and Data Center (CSDC), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. CSDC pro- vides software sys- T he Dark Energy Camera (DECam) focal plane com- pared with the size of a person. DECam was fabri- cated by the Department of Energy (DOE). [DES/DOE/ LBNL/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Hahn] tems, user services, and develop- ment initiatives to connect and sup- port the scientific missions of NOIR- Lab’s telescopes, including the Blan- co Telescope at CTIO. “Because astronomical datasets to- day are so vast, the cost of handling them is prohibitive for individual re- searchers or most organizations,” said Robert Nikutta, Project Scientist for Astro Data Lab at CSDC. “CSDC provides open access to big astro- nomical datasets like DES DR2, and the necessary tools to explore and exploit them — then all it takes is someone from the community with a clever idea to discover new and exciting science.” !