17,168 Days ........

[Kunama]

Here is a picture I took today for any of you walking down memory lane 47 years on ........

17,168 days ago this antenna brought you the images of the century, mankind's first visit to another place.......

This is the 26m antenna known as DSS46 today being washed by heavy rain squalls at the Canberra Deep Space Communications Centre, Tidbinbilla.
The pictures you saw back in 1969 were first received through this antenna (17,168 days ago) at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station (HSK) south of Canberra, the pictures were then relayed to your TV screens around the world. The antenna has now been retired for 7 years.
The actual first photographic prints of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Lunar surface were taken from TV monitors at HSK by my dear departed friend Martin G. using a b&w Polaroid camera and those photographs are in my sister-in-law's personal collection......

I had the lucky pleasure of climbing this antenna when it was still in its original home at HSK when I took part in Search&Rescue exercises there.....

[Dennis]

Nice B&W conversion Matt – reminds me of Ilford FP4 film.

Cheers

Dennis

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Great History Lesson .... a bygone era
I was 14 years old then, and the High School I attended told us all to go home and watch this History making event.

Great Photo Matt...

Flash

[Kunama]

I was in Finland getting ready for our move to Australia and watched it with my family.......

I have a head cold today so my wife told me to keep away from her, so I spent the whole day at Mt Stromlo Observatory and at Deep Space Comms Centre watching he last Juno stuff......
My kind of day!

[Ric]

EEEK!, has it been 17,168 days since I was nine.

I remember all that like it was yesterday.

[leon]

Ah yes, remember it well, all those days ago great pic Matt.

Leon

[MattT]

I was in grade 1 in Canberra. The whole school got to watch in the school hall on a black and white TV. My class watched at around 2pm in the afternoon…it was raining is all I really remember…plus someone jumping around on the Moon.

My father took a day off work to watch at home…he was a research scientist at CSIRO plant division and never took holidays…. not ever that I can remember…. so the Moon landing was a big big deal.

A next door neighbour but one worked at Tidbinbilla too….Americans that came out from California…

Thanks for the memory jog Matt.

[Kunama]

Matt, I was interested to see a construction fence around the old Oddie Dome building, hopefully some restoration work ???