An Era Comes to an End: The Legacy of LABOCA at APEX

It was 13 years ago, in May 2007, when the Large APEX Bolometer Camera (LABOCA) was commissioned as a facility instrument on the APEX telescope at the 5100-m-high Llano de Chajnantor. This 870-µm bolometer camera, in combination with the high efficiency of APEX and the excellent atmospheric transmission at the site, has offered an unprecedented capability in mapping the submillimetre continuum emission in objects ranging from the Solar System and star-forming regions throughout the Galactic plane, to the most distant galaxies. As the operation of LABOCA is soon coming to an end to make space for a new array of continuum detectors, we present an overview of the challenges, lessons learned and science impact that it has generated. To date, LABOCA has produced the most papers of any APEX instrument and compares favourably with many VLT instruments.