Parkes Radio Telescope.

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Parkes Radio Telescope is the best known astronomical observatory in Australia that was completed in 1961. It is the second largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere and is one of the first large movable discs in the world. This particular telescope is 64 meters and has a 18 meter antenna. The Parkes radio Telescope has been operating almost everyday since it has been completed. It has been used to track many space missions such as Mariner 2, Mariner 4, Voyager, Giotto, Galileo and Cassini -Huygens probes.

The Parkes Radio Telescope was upgraded by putting metal plates to the center part of the telescope to provide focusing capability for centimetre and millimetre length microwaves. It also has a receiving cabin that has many radio and microwave detectors. NASA copied the basic design of the Parkes Radio Telescope in their deep space mission due to all the success it has had.

Bruce Window led a team to support the Apollo 11 using the Parkes Radio Telescope. This telescope was the reason why we have pictures of the first time man walked on the moon. In 2000 the observatory and telescope were featured in the movie "the dish" , a fictional movie based on the Apollo 11 mission to land and walk on the moon.