Coonabarabran
NSN 2357
A receiving dish of the Australia Telescope Parkes, NSW
Photo (CSIRO)
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The Parkes Observatory (also known informally as "The Dish") is a radio telescope observatory, located 20 kilometres north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia.
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The sender writes:
If it was not for the Parks Space Receiver Station your 1969 moon landing would have been different...
Here is what I found:
When Buzz Aldrin switched on the TV camera on the Lunar Module, three tracking antennas received the signals simultaneously. They were the 64-metre Goldstone antenna in California, the 26-metre antenna at Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra in Australia, and the 64-metre dish at Parkes.
In the first few minutes of the broadcast, NASA alternated between the signals being received from its two stations at Goldstone and Honeysuckle Creek, searching for the best quality picture.
A little under nine minutes into the broadcast, the TV was switched to the Parkes signal. The quality of the TV pictures from Parkes was so superior that NASA stayed with Parkes as the source of the TV for the remainder of the 2.5 hour broadcast.
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Here is a better view of the stamp . . .
Australia stamp 1992
International Space Year
Spiral Galaxy NGC 2997
1.20
