Quote:
Originally Posted by gary
Hi Doug,
Parkes has undergone many upgrades over the decades, some parts
many times over, including the surfacing and size of the antenna itself,
the control system, receivers and so on.
It is testimony to how well engineered and built it was in the first place
that it can achieve 11 arcsecond RMS pointing accuracy in wind and that
its surface accuracy is within 1mm to 2mm of a best-fit parabola.
Impressive for a dish that weights 300 tonnes.
So whilst the basic structure has remained unchanged, as an instrument
it is said to be tens of thousands of times more sensitive than it was
in 1961 and is in use by about 300 researchers a year.
Half of the known pulsars have been discovered at Parkes.
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I have been lucky enough to work on the parkes radio telescope earlier this year, replacing a components related to the altitude mechanism.
They have been upgrading the detectors over time like gary has mentioned. I had a look at the 13 pixel (not megapixels) array with derotator assembly and the other single sensor array.
I was working there during a shutdown and there were multiple sets of contractors performing tasks to repair and upgrade the dish. The people who are predicting its demise in the short term are wrong. And it not really news as this plan for remote operation has been rolling out for some time.
The room I was working in is the ME room which controls the pointing and the large equatorial in that room has its history tied up with Barnes Wallace, the designer of the British bouncing bomb.
As for going completely remote: there will have to be some staff looking after her. The Csiro employee supervising us is the cryogenic technician, so it was interesting as he explained the components of prime focus. It was very cool.