Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array

Two instruments known as the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array, or SCUBA, have been used for detecting submillimetre radiation on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii.

The older continuum single pixel UKT14 bolometer receiver was replaced in the 1990s by the Submillimeter Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA). The SCUBA project was green-lighted in 1987 by the JCMT board and was in development for nearly a decade before it saw first light on the telescope. While it was not the first bolometer array it was "unique in combining an unparallel sensitivity with an extensive wavelength range and field-of-view" [1].

SCUBA operated simultaneously at wavelengths of 450 and 850 micron (with 91 and 37 pixels, respectively), and was sensitive to the thermal emission from interstellar dust. SCUBA is ranked second only to the Hubble Space Telescope in terms of publication of high-impact astronomical research. SCUBA was retired from service in 2005, and it is now in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

SCUBA-2, another continuum instrument, was commissioned in 2011. This ground-breaking camera consists of large arrays of superconducting transition edge sensors with a mapping speed hundreds of times larger than SCUBA. It has 5120 array elements at both 450 and 850 micron wavelength (10,240 total pixels). It has been conducting the JCMT legacy surveys since November, 2011, including the SCUBA-2 All Sky Survey, and was made available for general astronomical observations in February, 2012. Two ancillary instruments, FTS-2 and POL-2, add spectroscopic and polarimetric capabilities to SCUBA-2.

The SCUBA-2 All-Sky Survey (SASSy), is an astronomical survey using the SCUBA-2 camera to map the sky at submillimeter wavelengths (850 µm). It is most sensitive to very cold gas and dust. The survey started in 2011. A team of around 50 astronomers from the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Netherlands, and Japan aim to map a huge swathe of the sky to find rare galaxies and stars being formed.

...
Wikipedia