LSSTComCam: The LSST Commissioning Camera¶
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71929/rubin/2561361
The LSST Commissioning Camera (LSSTComCam) was mounted on the Simonyi Survey Telescope in August 2022 and observed for seven weeks in late 2024 until it was removed from the telescope in December 2024. It is a smaller, fully functional version of LSSTCam, with only the central raft of 9 4k x 4k CCDs (all ITL sensors) and comprising 144 megapixels. Every CCD has 16 amplifiers, each reading 1 million pixels. LSSTComCam was designed to enable end-to-end testing of the observatory’s systems, including data acquisition, image processing, and observatory operations.
Additional information is available via:
Rubin commissioning camera: integration, functional testing, and lab performance, Stalder et al. (2020; SPIE, doi:10.1117/12.2561132)
Rubin Observatory Commissioning Camera: summit integration, Stalder et al. (2022; SPIE, doi:10.1117/12.2630184)
An interim report on the ComCam on-sky campaign, Vera C. Rubin Observatory (2025; Commissioning Technical Note SITCOMTN-149)
This material is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation through Cooperative Agreement AST-1258333 and Cooperative Support Agreement AST-1202910 managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), and the Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515 with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory managed by Stanford University. Additional Rubin Observatory funding comes from private donations, grants to universities, and in-kind support from LSSTC Institutional Members.