The square blue 3-by-3 CCD array that makes up Rubin's commissioning camera focal plan is visible face on inside the surrounding black structure and ring-shaped opening of the camera

ComCam Demo

...makes its way across the Universe

The engineering test camera, or commissioning camera (ComCam), has a mosaic of nine CCD sensors with a total of 144 megapixels. It covers an area about twice that of a full Moon. Over the seven-week ComCam engineering test campaign, from 24 October to 11 December 2024, approximately 16,000 exposures were acquired to test Rubin Observatory’s hardware and software systems and data pipeline.

Fun Facts

ComCam is a much smaller version of the huge LSSTCam. The LSSTCam will next be installed on the telescope in place of ComCam, where it will help carry out Rubin’s 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time. With 189 CCD sensors, LSSTCam’s field of view will be 21 times that of ComCam, with each single image capturing an area on the sky about 45 times the size of the full Moon. Coupled with Rubin’s fast-moving, 8.4-meter telescope, the LSSTCam will capture very faint objects and objects that change in position or brightness at a rate the science community has never seen before.