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World's biggest camera will reveal its first-ever photos next week

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The 3,200 megapixel camera at Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile is set to show us its first images on June 23

Finished LSST Camera
The Vera C Rubin Observatory camera is the size of family car and weighs over 3 tons (Image credit: Jacqueline Ramseyer Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

The world's biggest camera, capable of delivering 3200 megapixel image of the night sky, is about to show us its first-ever images. The monster camera, which is housed at the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile, is said to be able to see a golf ball from 15 miles away. On June 23 the first images from its ultra-definition sensor will be made public for the first time.

This moment has been a long time coming. We started reporting on this monster camera back in 2019, when the giant lens for the camera, which measures 5 metres across, was being assembled at SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, in California. The camera will capture 1000 images a night over the next 10 years, with the project's mission being to catalog 20 billion galaxies.

The First Look event at the observatory next week will unveil "a set of large, ultra-high-definition images and videos that showcase Rubin’s extraordinary capabilities to the world for the first time", we are told. "This will mark the beginning of a new era in astronomy and astrophysics".

The event will be shown live on the Vera C Rubin Observatory's YouTube channel and on its website at 11am (Eastern Daylight Time) / 4pm (British Summer Time) on Monday, June 23, 2025.

Hundreds of venues around the world will also be hosting watch parties that include a public viewing of the live stream. Check out the Rubin First Look Watch Party website to find out if there is a location near you.

The Vera C. Rubin telescope is situated high in the Andes, near Santiago in Chile (Image credit: Rubin Observatory/NSF/AURA)

Some of our earlier stories on the Vera C Rubin telescope's camera:

• The car-sized camera that can see a golf ball from 15 miles away is nearly ready to start taking epic images of the galaxy

• World's biggest camera now ready to shoot 3,200-megapixel photos of outer space

Chris George
Chris George
Content Director

Chris George has worked on Digital Camera World since its launch in 2017. He has been writing about photography, mobile phones, video making and technology for over 30 years – and has edited numerous magazines including PhotoPlus, N-Photo, Digital Camera, Video Camera, and Professional Photography. 

His first serious camera was the iconic Olympus OM10, with which he won the title of Young Photographer of the Year - long before the advent of autofocus and memory cards. Today he uses a Sony A7 IV, alongside his old Nikon D800 and his iPhone 15 Pro Max.

He is the author of a number of books including The Book of Digital Photography, which has been translated into a dozen different languages.

In addition to his expertise in photography and videomaking, he has written about technology for countless publications and websites including The Sunday Times Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, What Cellphone, T3 and Techradar.

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