LSST Science Preparation

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is applying for membership in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Kentucky EPSCoR has offered to pay the $75,000 one-time buy-in fee, and a consortium of KY universities has committed to paying the $25,000 annual fees for five years. These state and consortium aliate funds are matching funds for this proposal to NASA Space Grant for start-up support for our astronomical community. The NASA matching funds will support research to train students and faculty in "Big Data" methods, to help our ramp-up to using LSST. There are two principal ways we can do this: 1) undergraduate, graduate student and faculty research 2) Big Data/LSST conference and workshop attendance, to become familiar with LSST-style capabilities and software, and to foster collaborations with experienced data-miners.