WE have measured the radiation from the region of the Crab nebula (Taurus A) in a waveband centred at 1.2 mm (250 GHz) in the far infrared. Our equipment was an indium antimonide detector of the Rollin1 type cooled by liquid helium at the cassegrain focus of the 98 inch Isaac Newton telescope of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. The observations were made with the aid of a rapid-scan unit, comprising an oscillating mirror which scanned in declination 13.7' of arc on the sky either side of its axial point with a period of 1.2 s. The effect of the rapid scanning is to increase the discrimination of the system against v-1 components in both sky background and detector electronic noise2. The scans were synchronized, stored digitally and averaged by means of an ``enhancetron'' digital analyser, which provided a visual display and chart recorder readout.