{"id":3062,"date":"2011-10-06T12:33:38","date_gmt":"2011-10-06T01:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/?p=3062"},"modified":"2012-03-21T09:29:19","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T22:29:19","slug":"the-dish-is-celebrating-its-50th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/science\/the-dish-is-celebrating-its-50th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dish is celebrating its 50th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/p>\n

The CSIRO Parkes Telescope in Spring 2004. Photo copyright: John Sarkissian<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

CSIRO’s Parkes Observatory turns 50 on October 31 and is celebrating with public Open Days this weekend.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Parkes Radio Telescope<\/a> was commissioned on the 31st of October, 1961, and is best known for its role in the Apollo 11 moon landing, immortalised in the movie The Dish<\/a> in 2000. On July 21 in 1969, along with the Honeysuckle Creek tracking station outside Canberra and NASA’s Goldstone station in California, the Dish received and relayed television signals to Mission Control at Houston.<\/p>\n

NASA discovered that Parkes was receiving superior pictures and used this footage for the remaining 2.5 hours of the telecast. As part of the Open Days, the Apollo 11 video (recently restored by NASA) will be on sale for the first time ever at Parkes Observatory.<\/p>\n

John Sarkissian, Telescope Operations & Science Operations at Parkes Observatory, says the Dish has also been involved in a number of scientific discoveries. In 1962, the telescope helped identify and determine the nature of the first quasar, and has found most of the 2000 known quasars.<\/p>\n

The Dish has also been involved in mapping our Galaxy, finding other galaxies, discovering magnetic field of the Milk Way and hunting for gravity waves. “Parkes is still one of the best-performing radio telescopes in the world,” Chief of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science Dr Phil Diamond said in the press release.<\/p>\n

Repeated upgrades have made the telescope 10,000 times more sensitive than when it first opened. The standout new technology has been the multibeam (multipixel) receiver, which allows the telescope to see more of the sky at once, Diamond said.<\/p>\n

To celebrate the observatory’s 50th anniversary, the Parkes Observatory will host an Open Day weekend on October 8 and 9 to showcase its history and achievements. Members of the public will be able to take a guided tour through the control room and central column of the telescope.<\/p>\n

Parkes Observatory has also been involved in the development of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder<\/a> (ASKAP), according to Sarkissian, with the antennas tested at Parkes before they are shipped to Western Australia. Visitors will also be able to go behind the scenes and learn more about the ASKAP.<\/p>\n

Other events will include:
\n– Talks and presentations
\n– Q&A session with engineers and astronomers
\n– The 50th anniversary photographic exhibition
\n– Hot air ballooning
\n– Questacon street performers
\n– Opera at the Dish<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CSIRO’s Parkes Observatory turns 50 on October 31 and is celebrating with public Open Days this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,8,27,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-science","category-space","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3062"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3066,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3062\/revisions\/3066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scienceillustrated.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}