Instrumental Parameters

All detectors are cooled to below 100mK by a He3/He4 dilution refrigerator. This, together with the single-moded optics design and filters with responses carefully matched to the atmospheric transmission windows, results in sky-noise limted performance at all wavelengths: more than half the total power received at the bolometers comes from the sky.

Typical sensitivity values in the form of Noise Equivalent Flux Densities (NEFDs) can be found here. Recent values for the gain of SCUBA, known as Flux Conversion Factors (FCFs), as derived from observations of known calibrators, can be found here.