[Beeping sound]
[Birds calling]
(Dr Jon Ables) Well here we are at the Parkes Radio Telescope,
today one of the foremost instruments in the world for radio astronomy.
It's a big dish 64 metres in diameter
and it can turn and tilt to scan the entire sky.
[Music plays]
With it tipped over to the ground like it is now we can step right aboard.
Come with me and I'll show you how it works.
OK, Bob take the telescope to the zenith.
[Music plays]
The radio waves from space striking the surface of the big dish here
are reflected and focused to a spot directly over my head.
There's the aerial cabin where the sensitive receiving gear is placed.
Well here we are on the focal platform itself.
Below us there's nothing but the big dish itself.
The radio waves are focused right to this platform.
I'm looking onto the dish and I know full well
that the radio waves from distant galaxies
and quasars and pulsars are being focused right into my face
but I don't feel a thing.
The reason is that these waves are extraordinarily weak
and that's what we need this receiver for.
It's a very sensitive amplifier
which amplifies the signal about a million times.
The signal passes through a hole, not the one I'm looking through,
but a hole here in the centre and up through
these pipes and into the receiver.
From there it's sent down cables to the radio room
which is in the tower supporting the dish itself below us.
[Music plays]
We're back on the ground again
just outside the supporting tower of the telescope.
It has three levels but we'll pick up our radio signal on the first floor.
We're now on the first floor of the supporting tower of the telescope
and this room which is often called the radio room
is filled with equipment to further amplify the weak signal
that was sent down by the cable from the aerial cabin.
The signal which was already amplified by a million times
in the aerial cabin is increased in strength again a million times.
And finally a million million times stronger
than when it came from space into the telescope
it is ready to be sent to the control room above us
for final recording and analysis.
Now in the control room the signal
generally is passed first to this machine.
The purpose of this machine is to break the radio signal
into its component parts
very much like a prism breaks white light into its colours
and this machine works with our digital computer.
The digital computer finally presents the result as a graph.
[printer working]
And here's the digital computer and in front of it the radio astronomer.
These days to be a radio astronomer often
means that you have to be a computer operator as well.
How's it going Alan?
(Alan) Well we've got a possible detection on 273 but
I think we'll have to leave it for today.
I think we'll go over to 2142.
Frank, could we go to 2142 minus 75 please?
(Frank) OK.
(Dr Jon Ables) And that was the astronomer telling our telescope
driver to move the telescope to the next source
in the sky that he wishes to observe.
[Beeping sounds]
[Music plays]
(Frank) You're on source Alan.
(Dr Jon Ables) The observations of the heavens
with the radio telescope continue night and day
and the information collected appearing mostly as graphs, charts,
tables flows out continuously but eventually
it is in the mind of the radio astronomer himself
that the picture of the universe must form.
The radio telescope serves only to extend the senses of man
deeper into the heavens to find out how it works
and what our place is in it.
( Male) Well what do you reckon Paul?
(Paul) I think we should do 0922 minus 51 with a ten second integration marker.
(Male) Yes, but you'll have to reload the tape again first.
(Paul) Yeah, OK.
[Music plays]