The Large APEX Bolometer Camera LABOCA

摘要

A new facility instrument, the Large APEX Bolometer Camera (LABOCA), developed by the Max-Planck-Institut fiir Radioastronomie (MPIfR, Bonn, Germany), has been commissioned in May 2007 for operation on the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope (APEX), a 12 m submillimeter radio telescope located at 5100 m altitude on Llano de Chajnantor in northern Chile. For mapping, this 295-bolometer camera for the 870 micron atmospheric window operates in total power mode without wobbling the secondary mirror. One LABOCA beam is 19 arcsec FWHM and the field of view of the complete array covers 100 square arcmin. Combined with the high efficiency of APEX and the excellent atmospheric transmission at the site, LABOCA offers unprecedented capability in large scale mapping of submillimeter continuum emission. Details of design and operation are presented.