SCUBA: a common-user submillimetre camera operating on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope

SCUBA, the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array, built by the Royal Ob servatory Edinburgh for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, is the most vers atile and powerful of a new generation of submillimetre cameras, It combine s a sensitive dual-waveband imaging array with a three-band photometer, and is sky-background-limited by the emission from the Mauna Kea atmosphere at all observing wavelengths from 350 mu m to 2 mm. The increased sensitivity and array size mean that SCUBA maps close to 10000 times faster than its s ingle-pixel predecessor (UKT14). SCUBA is a facility instrument, open to th e world community of users, and is provided with a high level of user suppo rt. We give an overview of the instrument, describe the observing modes, us er interface and performance figures on the telescope, and present a sample of the exciting new results that have revolutionized submillimetre astrono my.