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3D is a next-generation near-IR spectrometer developed at the MPE which offers, in a single integration, the opportunity to image an 8$^{\prime \prime} \times 8^{\prime \prime}$ field across almost the entire K-band at a simultaneous spatial resolution of 0.5$^{\prime \prime}$ . The basic principle of the instrument is relatively simple. The two dimensional image from the telescope is sliced into 16 0.5$^{\prime \prime}$ wide strips which are then aligned optically on top of each other forming a single long slit. This long slit is used as the input for a grating spectrometer which images it onto a 2 dimensional detector array. Each detector row then represents the spectrum of one spatial (0.5$^{\prime \prime}$ element of the two dimensional field of view. The central part of the optical system is the image slicer which is made of two complex plane mirror systems consisting of 16 segments each. The detector is a NICMOS III HgCdTe array with 256$\times$256 pixels. In the spectral domain the spectrometer will provide a resolving power of R=1000. The instrument was commissioned at the 3.5m Calar Alto telescope in late November 1993. Here we present highlights of the astronomical results obtained during this run.
