Tracking spacecraft with Parkes radio telescopeThe fictional film 'The Dish' was based on the real role that the telescope played in receiving video footage of the first Moon walk by the crew of Apollo 11.
Parents need to know that there is brief strong language, social drinking and smoking, and some tension.
Cast (in credits order) verified as complete
| Sam Neill | | Cliff Buxton |
|---|
| John McMartin | | U.S. Ambassador Howard |
| Frank Bennett | | Barry Steele |
| Randall Berger | | Ambassador's Aide |
| Charles 'Bud' Tingwell | | Reverend Loftus |
Parkes has a parabolic dish antenna, 64 m in diameter with a collecting area of 3,216 m2. The dish is made up of aluminium panels supported by a lattice-work of supporting struts. To incoming radio waves from space, the dish surface acts in the same manner as a smooth mirror.
Located 20km north of Parkes, The Dish is a short 5km detour off the Newell Highway. Built virtually in the shadow of The Dish, the Visitor Discovery Centre is where visitors are invited to explore the world of astronomy and discover what role The Dish plays in 'listening to the stars'.
Attractions
- The Dish. Learn More.
- The Henry Parkes Centre. Learn More.
- Memorial Hill. Learn More.
- Bushman's Hill. Learn More.
- Kelly Reserve. Learn More.
- Wiradjuri Amphitheatre. Learn More.
- Parkes Aviation Museum. Learn More.
- Public Art Trail. Learn More.
So why did Honeysuckle Creek end up playing such a pivotal role? "It really came down to Honeysuckle being in the right place at the right time with the Moon in the right position to be able to receive those signals," Glen Nagle from the CSIRO said.
Australia's historic role in spaceAustralian tracking stations played important roles in the Apollo 11 mission. The Carnarvon station provided the 'go/no go' confirmation that sent the Apollo spacecraft out of Earth orbit and on its way to the Moon.
John Gorton
| The Right Honourable Sir John Gorton GCMG AC CH |
|---|
| Gorton in January 1968 |
| 19th Prime Minister of Australia |
| In office 10 January 1968 – 10 March 1971 |
| Monarch | Elizabeth II |
When the decision was made to broadcast the moonwalk, Parkes came into its own. The large collecting area of its dish provided extra gain in signal strength, making it ideal for receiving a weak TV signal transmitted 384,000km from the Moon, using the same power output as two LED lights today.
Wapakoneta, Ohio, U.S. Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer, and the first person to walk on the Moon.
The dishes of some radio telescopes spin around a shaft that is aimed at the North Pole Star. These equatorial mounts allow the telescope to follow a position in the sky as the Earth rotates, simply by copying the Earth's axis of rotation and moving against it.
Researchers primarily use Parkes radio telescope for radio astronomy. But its large dish surface has made it valuable for tracking spacecraft exploring our Solar System. In 1962 it tracked the first interplanetary space mission, Mariner 2, as it flew by the planet Venus.
Radio telescopes look toward the heavens to view planets, comets, giant clouds of gas and dust, stars, and galaxies. By studying the radio waves originating from these sources, astronomers can learn about their composition, structure, and motion.
The Green Bank Telescope can be used to do chemistry, physics, radar receiving, and astronomy and has no equal in the world. The National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope will join in the search for intelligent life in the Universe as part of the Breakthrough Listen endeavor.
The world's most powerful radio telescope, in its combination of sensitivity, resolution, and versatility, is the Very Large Array (VLA) located on the plains of San Agustin near Socorro, in central New Mexico, U.S. The VLA consists of 27 parabolic antennas, each measuring 25 metres (82 feet) in diameter.
You can't buy a ready-made radio telescope for home use in the same way that you do for optical telescopes. Instead, many astronomers build their own set ups to observe the sun and molecular clouds in the galaxy, and even to take up the search for extraterrestrial civilizations.
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
