Lab Notebook: Rubin Observatory Thermal Data Analysis

Generated: 2026-02-08 10:37
Data: rubin_mirror_temps.csv — Vera C. Rubin Observatory primary mirror temperature, Jun–Dec 2025
Location: Cerro Pachon, Chile (lat -30.24, lon -70.74, elev 2715 m)

1. Data Summary

The dataset contains 17,642 measurements at 15-minute intervals, from 2025-06-01 00:00 to 2025-12-01 18:15 UTC. Two columns: timestamp and temperature (°C). No missing values, no gaps in the time series, no outliers detected.

2. Temperature Time Series

$Temperature time series$

Source: plot_temperature.py

3. Temperature Distribution

Temperature range: -9.09 to 20.23 °C. Mean: 8.75 °C, Std Dev: 5.08 °C.

4. Temperature Extremes

Extreme	Value (°C)	Timestamp (UTC)
Maximum	20.2329	2025-07-03 17:15:00
Minimum	-9.0872	2025-08-23 10:45:00

5. Last Week with Sunset Markers

Sunset times computed using astropy for Cerro Pachon. Red dots indicate the temperature at local sunset for each day.

Source: plot_temperature.py

6. Fourier Analysis — Raw Power Spectrum

Rank	Period (days)	Relative Power
1	61.2569	1.0000
2	183.7708	0.8227
3	36.7542	0.7580
4	0.9988	0.6163
5	16.7064	0.5093
6	13.1265	0.4424
7	7.0681	0.4228
8	91.8854	0.3885
9	10.8100	0.3404
10	4.5943	0.3095

7. Fourier Analysis — Peaks Above Local Background

Rank	Period (days)	SNR (power/background)
1	0.9988	969.91
2	0.4994	429.35
3	0.2500	138.41
4	0.1666	42.04
5	0.3335	27.06
6	0.4888	21.10
7	0.1429	19.72
8	0.0387	19.13
9	0.0427	14.99
10	0.0720	13.40

Source: fourier_analysis.py

Data Provenance

Data file: rubin_mirror_temps.csv
Source: Vera C. Rubin Observatory telemetry, primary mirror thermal sensors
Period: June 1 – December 1, 2025
Sampling: 15-minute intervals
Temperature column is the mean of tempMax and tempMin from the original dataset