ARTICLES
Astronomy from the Ground up – Parkes, 24th–26th May, 2019
By Elijah Marshall
At the outset, I need to declare that I’m a die-hard Astronomy
Nerd™. As such, I jump at every chance I get to visit and use the
facilities that Australia has to offer.
However, this article is about a completely different field of
astronomy, and a place that’s come to cement itself into a special
part in my heart. Australia does punch well above its weight when it comes
to astronomy. Optical astronomy is well covered, with the
Anglo Australian Telescope at Siding Spring being one of the
major players. We have produced some notable astronomers,
including Fred Watson and Nobel Prize winners including Prof.
Brian Schmidt. However, the astronomical area that Australia is a
world leader in is radio astronomy. These wavelengths of light fall
well outside the visible spectrum, having frequencies from 3kHz
up to 300GHz. As the speed of light is constant, a 10MHz wave
has a wavelength of 30 metres, and as such needs a telescope
big enough to receive those waves. Whilst a 200mm telescope
can be used in your backyard to observe the universe with visible
light you’d need something much bigger to view the sky in radio
wavelengths.
The Dish doing what it does best. I found myself whispering
around it, afraid to disturb the research going on. After all,
people queue for time on this instrument for ages. The Parkes Radio Telescope looks particularly impressive at
night. It did make observing with our optical telescopes harder,
however.
During the STEM-X Academy, I was rapt when we were able
to visit the Mount Stromlo Observatory (ANU Research School
of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2019). I love the Deep Space
Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla (National Aeronautic
and Space Administration, 2019) and Siding Spring (Australian
National University, 2019) is one of my favourite places, especially
when we do the Solar System Drive.
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 3