Hey, everyone, I think it is finally time to finish this series of telescopes.
I've hit some problems and well time-draining duties and somehow I dropped out from writing anything on hive. Which I regret a bit, but I'll try to get right back on the track.
Anyhow, I've written about radio telescopes and how they work and all the sciency stuff about them. but this one is more about standing in front of the giant dish in awe. It is the 4th largest antenna in the world:
- FAST 500m, China
- Arecibo 305m, Puerto Rico
- Effelsberg 100m, Bonn, Germany
- Parkes 64m, Australia
And how big it is? - the diameter of the antenna is 64m. which makes the area of the antenna roughly 3215 square meters - just for comparison dimensions of Anfield or Santiago Bernabeu are 101/105m x 68m only 4m wider than the dish. (~6800 square meters)
So imagine standing under the giant metal football pitch. :)
Even if Parkes is an old instrument, commissioned in 1961, it has been upgraded several times and still has it's scientific values in radio astronomy.
Half of the observation time is bought by Russian billionaire to continue SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) project, and the rest of the available time for observation goes for searching transient objects - something not really understood in astronomy called FRB( Fast Radio Bursts) - these bursts can be seen out of nowhere and sometimes they repeat on the same place, but usually they are one-time events. The third major study case objects are all time classics Pulsars.
If you've come this far then here is a video about the Parkes and it's link to apollo 11 and landing of the moon broadcast.
