A deep submillimeter survey of the Galactic center

We present first results from a submillimeter continuum survey of the Galac tic center "central molecular zone" (CMZ), made with the Submillimeter Comm on-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. SCUBA 's scan-map mode has allowed us to make extremely wide field maps of therma l dust emission with unprecedented speed and sensitivity. We also discuss s ome issues related to the elimination of artifacts in scan-map data. Our si multaneous 850/450 mm maps have a total size of approximately 2 degrees .8. x 0 degrees .5 (400 x 75 pc) elongated along the Galactic plane. They cove r the Sagittarius A region, including Sgr A*, the circumnuclear disk, and t he 20 and 50 km s(-1) clouds; the area around the Pistol; Sgr B2, the brigh test feature on the maps; and at their Galactic western and eastern edges t he Sgr C and Sgr D regions. There are many striking features such as filame nts and shell-like structures as well as point sources such as Sgr A* itsel f. The total mass in the CMZ is greater than that revealed in previous opti cally thin molecular line maps by a factor of similar to3, and new details are revealed on scales down to 0.33 pc across this 400 pc-wide region.