Posted by KeighleyAstro on Jun 28, 2025 in Main |

The June monthly meeting of Keighley Astronomical society was held on Thursday 26th and the guest speaker was a return visit by our good friend Mr Peter Rea FRAS from the Cleethorpes and district Astronomical society. The subject matter of his talk was something different from his previous presentations. Mr Rea tends to talk about the exploration of Space during the 1960’s and 70’s, and excellent lectures they are. On this occasion he had produced a completely different presentation, which had a strong personal aspect to it as it about his visit in the summer of 2024 to New South Wales and Victoria state in Australia.

It was very personal to Mr Rea and his wife as they were visiting that part of the world to attend their daughters wedding. But you don’t travel to the other side of the world without taking in the astronomical sights when Astronomy and Space exploration has always been a driving influence on your life.

One of Mr Rea’s favourite films was released in the year 2000, and was fronted by the New Zealand actor Sam Neill. ‘The Dish’. A historical drama that tells the story of the Parkes Observatory’s role in relaying live television of humanity’s first steps on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It was the top-grossing Australian film when released. So Mr Rea had the chance to tick of from his ‘bucket’ list two places the he has always wanted to visit: The Parkes Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Siding Springs Observatory.

Mr Rea opened up his presentation by explaining the extreme distances travelled from Manchester Airport, and the time it took to reach the city of Melbourne in Australia. Once in Australia it was quickly understood that Australia is not just a country it is a continent and the distances within it are also vast. So internal airplane flights were organised to reach the target locations. Mr Rea, along with his wife and daughter took two connecting flights from Melbourne to the town of Dubbo in the outback of New South Wales state. The towns were the two observatories are located were about an hour or so’s drive north and to the south of Dubbo.

The Parkes Radio Observatory.

The first day based in Dubbo involved a visit to The Parkes Radio Observatory.

The Parkes Observatory is run by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), as part of the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) network of radio telescopes. It is frequently operated together with other CSIRO radio telescopes, principally the array of six 22-metre (72 ft) dishes at the Australia Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri, and a single 22-metre (72 ft) dish at Mopra (near Coonabarabran), to form a very long baseline interferometry array. The observatory was included on the Australian National Heritage List on 10th August 2020.

The Parkes Radio Telescope, completed in 1961, was the brainchild of E. G. “Taffy” Bowen, chief of the CSIRO’s Radiophysics Laboratory. During the Second World War, he had worked on radar development in the United States and had made connections in its scientific community. Calling on this old boy network, he persuaded two philanthropic organisations, the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation, to fund half the cost of the telescope. It was this recognition and key financial support from the United States that persuaded Australian prime minister, Robert Menzies, to agree to fund the rest of the project.

The Parkes site was chosen in 1956, as it was accessible, but far enough from Sydney to have clear skies. Additionally the mayor Ces Moon and landowner Australia James Helm were both enthusiastic about the project.

The success of the Parkes telescope led NASA to copy features of the design into their Deep Space Network, which included three 64-metre (210 ft) dishes built at Goldstone, California, Madrid, Spain, and Tidbinbilla, near Canberra in Australia.
The telescope continues to be upgraded, and as of 2018 is 10,000 times more sensitive than its initial configuration.

The primary observing instrument is the 64-metre (210 ft) movable dish telescope, second largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and one of the first large movable dishes in the world (DSS-43 at Tidbinbilla was extended from 64-metre (210 ft) to 70-metre (230 ft) in 1987, surpassing Parkes).

The telescope has an altazimuth mount. It is guided by a small mock-telescope placed within the structure at the same rotational axes as the dish, but with an equatorial mount. The two are dynamically locked when tracking an astronomical object by a laser guiding system. This primary-secondary approach was designed by Barnes Wallis. (The very same person who invented the bouncing bomb in WW2).

The 18-metre (59 ft) “Kennedy Dish” antenna was transferred from the Fleurs Observatory (where it was part of the Mills Cross Telescope) in 1963. Mounted on rails and powered by a tractor engine to allow the distance between the antenna and the main dish to be easily varied, it was used as an interferometer with the main dish. Phase instability due to an exposed cable meant that its pointing ability was diminished, but it was able to be used for identifying size and brightness distributions. In 1968 it successfully proved that Radio galaxy lobes were not expanding, and in the same era contributed to Hydrogen line and OH investigations. As a stand-alone antenna it was used in studying the Magellanic Stream. It was used as an uplink antenna in the Apollo program, as the larger Parkes telescope is receive-only. It is preserved by the Australia Telescope National Facility.

Mr Rea explained that The Parkes Radio Observatory had been just if not more important in none astronomical discoveries than astronomical studies.

During the Apollo missions to the Moon, the Parkes Observatory was used to relay communication and telemetry signals to NASA, providing coverage for when the Moon was on the Australian side of the Earth.
The telescope also played a role in relaying data from the NASA Galileo mission to Jupiter that required radio-telescope support due to the use of its backup telemetry subsystem as the principal means to relay science data.

The observatory has remained involved in tracking numerous space missions up to the present day, including:

Mariner 2

Mariner 4

Voyager missions (but no longer due to distance of the probes, only the 70-metre (230 ft) dish at the CDSCC can still communicate with the two Voyager probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.)

Giotto where it was the primary control and downlink for the mission to Halley’s Comet

Galileo

Cassini-Huygens (until 2017)

Apollo 11 broadcast

When Buzz Aldrin switched on the TV camera on the Lunar Module, three tracking antennas received the signals simultaneously. They were the 64-metre (210 ft) Goldstone antenna in California, the 26-metre (85 ft) antenna at Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra in Australia, and the 64-metre (210 ft) dish at Parkes.
Since they started the spacewalk early, the Moon was only just above the horizon and below the visibility of the main Parkes receiver. Although they were able to pick up a quality signal from the off axis receiver, the international broadcast alternated between signals from Goldstone and Honeysuckle Creek, the latter of which ultimately broadcast Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon worldwide.

A little under nine minutes into the broadcast, the Moon rose far enough to be picked by the main antenna and the international broadcast 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.

In the lead up to the landing wind gusts greater than 100 km/h (62 mph) were hitting the Parkes telescope, and the telescope operated outside safety limits throughout the moonwalk.

In November 2020, the Observatory’s three telescopes were given local indigenous peoples names. The main telescope (“The Dish”) is Murriyang, after the home in the stars of Biyaami, the creator spirit. The smaller 12m dish built in 2008 is Giyalung Miil, meaning “Smart Eye”. The third, decommissioned antenna is Giyalung Guluman, meaning “Smart Dish”.

The Night Sky From Dubbo

Mr Rea then displayed a selection of excellent photographs he had taken of the southern night sky near to his overnight accommodation in Dubbo. Sand out features where the Milky way, the Southern Cross and Magellanic Clouds. All taken using an I-phone mounted on a tripod, at 4.40am in the morning.

Siding Springs Observatory

The day following the visit to Parkes, Mr Rea and his family travelled about and hour and three quarters to the Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran.

This observatory is part of the Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics (RSAA) at the Australian National University (ANU), incorporates the Anglo-Australian Telescope along with a collection of other telescopes owned by the Australian National University, the University of New South Wales, and other institutions. The observatory is situated 1,165 metres (3,822 ft) above sea level in the Warrumbungle National Park on Mount Woorat, also known as Siding Spring Mountain. Siding Spring Observatory is owned by the Australian National University (ANU) and is part of the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories research school.

The original Mount Stromlo Observatory was set up by the Australian Government in 1924. After duty supplying optical components to the military in World War II, the emphasis on astronomical research changed in the late 1940s from solar to stellar research. Between 1953 and 1974, the 74-inch (1.9 m) reflecting telescope at Mount Stromlo was the largest optical telescope in Australia.

Already in the 1950s, the artificial lights of the nearby city of Canberra, had brightened the sky at Mount Stromlo to such an extent that many faint astronomical objects had been overwhelmed by light pollution. The search for a new site was initiated by Bart Bok. After a site survey was undertaken the number of possible locations was narrowed down to two – Siding Spring and Mount Bingar near Griffith, also in New South Wales. Siding Spring was first suggested for astronomy by Harley Wood, the New South Wales Government Astronomer at the time. Arthur Hogg did much of the preliminary site testing.

The Siding Spring site was selected by the ANU in 1962 from many other possible locations because of the dark and cloud-free skies. By the mid-1960s the ANU had set up three telescopes, together with supporting facilities, such as sealed roads, staff accommodation, electricity and water. In 1984, the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, opened the ANU’s largest telescope, the low-cost and innovative 2.3-metre (7 ft 7 in) aperture telescope, housed in a simple, co-rotating cuboid dome.

Since the 1950s, and quite independently of developments at Siding Spring, the Australian and British governments had been negotiating about the construction of a very large telescope. When these negotiations finally came to fruition in 1969, the infrastructure of Siding Spring Observatory was already in place, and it was the obvious site at which to locate the 3.9-metre (13 ft) aperture Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT).

During the construction of the AAT in the early 1970s, the British Science Research Council also built the UK Schmidt Telescope, 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) to the northeast of the AAT dome. The considerably wider field of view of the Schmidt optical design complements the narrower field of the AAT, in that larger areas of sky may be surveyed more quickly. Interesting objects so discovered are then studied in greater detail on the larger instrument. In 1987, the Schmidt Telescope was amalgamated with the AAT.

Siding Spring Observatory also houses many telescopes from institutions across the world including, Korea, America, the UK, Poland, Hungary, Germany and Russia. In 1990, the earth-satellite tracking facility of the Royal Greenwich Observatory was closed down after 10 years of operation.
In 2012 the first publicly accessible Internet based observatory, working in partnership with the RSAA, was commissioned by iTelescope.Net with over 25 telescopes housed in a large roll-off roof (ROR) observatory near the base of the UK Schmidt Telescope.

Anglo-Australian Telescope

Whilst at Siding Springs Mr Rea took the opportunity to visit the Anglo-Australian Telescope. A 3.9-metre equatorially mounted telescope.

In 2009, the telescope was ranked as having the fifth-highest-impact of the world’s optical telescopes. In 2001–2003, it was considered the most scientifically productive 4-metre-class optical telescope in the world based on scientific publications using data from the telescope.

The telescope was commissioned in 1974 with a view to allowing high-quality observations of the sky from the Southern Hemisphere. At the time, most major telescopes were located in the Northern Hemisphere, leaving the southern skies poorly observed. It was the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere from 1974 to 1976, then a close second to the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope from 1976 until 1998, when the first ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) was opened. The AAT was credited with stimulating resurgence in British optical astronomy. It was built by the United Kingdom in partnership with Australia but has been entirely funded by Australia since 2010. Observing time is available to astronomers worldwide.

The AAT was one of the last large telescopes built with an equatorial mount. More recent large telescopes have instead adopted the more compact and mechanically stable altazimuth mount. The AAT was, however, one of the first telescopes to be fully computer-controlled, and set new standards for pointing and tracking accuracy.

British astronomer Richard van der Riet Woolley pushed for a large optical telescope for the Southern Hemisphere in 1959. In 1965, Macfarlane Burnet, president of the Australian Academy of Science, wrote to the federal education minister John Gorton inviting the federal government to support a joint British-Australian telescope project. Gorton was supportive, and nominated the Australian National University and CSIRO as Australia’s representatives in the joint venture; he was unsuccessful in his attempts to induce NASA to join the project. Gorton brought the proposal before cabinet in April 1967, which endorsed the scheme and agreed to contribute half the capital and running costs. An agreement with the British was finalised a few weeks later and a Joint Policy Committee started work on construction planning in August 1967. It took until September 1969 for plans to be finalised.

The mirror blank was made by Owens-Illinois in Toledo, Ohio. It was then transported to Newcastle, England, where Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Co took two years to grind and polish the mirror’s surface. Mitsubishi Electric built the mount, which was constructed by August 1973. First light occurred on 27th April 1974.

The telescope was officially opened by Prince Charles on 16th October 1974.

Mr Rea moved to a nearby building that houses 24 individual telescope’s that anyone including members of the public can access via an internet link and book a allocated time slot to view the southern night sky.

Just go to – itelescope.net – if you are interested.

The UK Schmidt Telescope

Mr Rea initially thought that he would be unable to reach the building on the site housing the UK Schmidt Telescope as is was clearly marked off limits. But he made enquiries at the visitors centre and was given permission, as it was a Sunday. There would be no staff working and therefore he would not be disturbing any work being done.

So the UK Schmidt was originally built and operated by the United Kingdom, starting from 1973, and was merged with the former Anglo-Australian Observatory in 1988. It has been wholly operated by Australia since the UK withdrew from the AAO in 2010 (though the name is unchanged).

The UKST is a Schmidt camera, with a design based on the Oschin Schmidt Telescope. It is a survey telescope with a 6° by 6° field of view, originally imaged onto a 35 cm square glass photographic plate, and was the primary source of optical survey data in the southern sky from the 1970s to after 2000. The original sky survey plates were digitally scanned by the Space Telescope Science Institute to create the Guide Star Catalog for the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Digitised Sky Survey.

Although the UKST was originally used to take photographs of the sky, traditional photographic glass (and film) became largely superseded by large electronic CCD detectors in the late 1990s, and after 2000 the UKST was used mostly for multi-object spectroscopy with the 6 degree Field (6dF) instrument.

The Faulkes Telescope South

Mr Rea was unfortunately unable to get near to the building the housed the Faulkes Telescope on the site.

The Faulkes Telescope South is a clone of the Liverpool Telescope and is a 2 m (79 in) Ritchey-Chrétien telescope. It was designed to be operated remotely with the aim of encouraging an interest in science by young people. It is supported by an altazimuth mount.

This telescope and its sister telescope Faulkes Telescope North are used by research and education groups across the globe. The Faulkes Telescope Project is one such group, which provides observing time (awarded by LCOGT) for educational projects for UK schools. Funds were initially sourced by charitable donations from philanthropist Dr. Martin C. Faulkes.

Faulkes Telescope South saw first light in 2004 with full operations occurring by 2006.

2008 HJ is a small near-Earth asteroid, which at the time of its discovery was the most rapidly rotating object in the solar system.

On the 4th May 2007 the first ever observation of one of the satellites of Uranus passing in front of another was made by Marton Hidas and Tim Brown.
In 2013 it was used to image the Near-Earth asteroid 2013 XY8.

There were several other telescopes on the Sidings Springs site of great significance that Mr Rea was unable to visit.

At the conclusion of Mr Rea’s presentation there was the customary question and answer session. One of the members present Mrs Carmel Dylak mentioned that one of her Uncles had been a researcher based at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in New South Wales at the time of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

Parkes Radio observatory received pictures only came into play later in the moon landing. Six hours after landing, the first steps on the Moon were transmitted from Honeysuckle Creek, after an initial attempt to use the pictures from Goldstone had been hampered by operator error and poor scan conversion settings.

Mr Rea was greeted by a loud round of applause from the society members when he finished answering their questions, and all were pleased to hear that he will be returning to Keighley Astronomical Society in June 2026 with a presentation around a visit he made to the Mount Wilson Observatory, in California.