The Dutch Rubin Enhanced Atmospheric Monitor – DREAM – brings high-resolution, real-time information on all-sky transparency and cloud coverage to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Leveraging the MASCARA legacy, DREAM employs five wide-field cameras, pointing upward and in the four cardinal directions. It precisely measures the brightness of all bright stars (V < 8.4) with a cadence of 6.4 seconds. To disentangle instrumental and stellar brightness variations from transmission fluctuations, a comprehensive spatial-temporal calibration is applied. The resulting transmission variations are calibrated and processed to generate an all-sky image of transparency, providing the actual cloud cover at an approximate cadence of 30 seconds. DREAM also produces calibrated light curves for stars brighter than magnitude 8.4, extending the temporal coverage of the MASCARA southern hemisphere survey. Integrated and tested at Leiden Observatory in 2023, DREAM was shipped in November of the same year and installed in close proximity to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. In its initial phase, DREAM supplies cloud coverage and transparency data to the Auxiliary Telescope. Once the LSST Camera of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory becomes operational, DREAM will play a crucial role in optimizing the survey strategy by providing input to the scheduler, particularly in non-photometric conditions.
The Vera C. Rubin observatory will be performing numerous studies and high cadence surveys. In order to perform the surveys most efficiently, the observations need to be planned in an optimal way, taking into account numerous atmospheric effects such as the current weather conditions and cloud cover. Building on the heritage from the MASCARA station, the DREAM team is developing the cloud & transmission monitoring system. The DREAM station is an upgraded version of the MASCARA station, which has been already been successfully operational on La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain, and La Silla, Chile. Using a set of wide-field cameras, nearly the full local sky is imaged every 6.4 seconds. Using calibrated brightness measurements of all bright stars (V < 8.4) in the field of view, the transmission and extinction is monitored, at a 30-60 seconds cadence. DREAM is currently being assembled and tested in the Netherlands and is expected to be deployed on-site by the end of 2022.
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