And now, a blatant plug for the podcast I host, Lateral! Episodes with William Osman, Simone Giertz, Devin "Legal Eagle" Stone, and loads more people are over at lateralcast.com - and there are highlights at clip-share.net/user/lateralcast !
Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how good of a guide John is? Presenting technical (and quite elaborate) information in an easy to understand manner, coupled with little quirks and bits of trivia about the facility without skipping a beat. I assume he has done this many times, but wow! A round of applause!
Tom as a seventy year old Australian I have to say I am very jealous. I have seen the dish from a distance but not up close and personal. Given the number of pieces you have produced featuring heights I find your continued apparent discomfort rather interesting. Please keep producing this material. I really enjoy your work.
I love all your stuff, Tom, but this is best video you've done in a long time. The dish is fascinating, John is a great guide, and the fact that you literally WALKED OFF THE TELESCOPE is just amazing. Great episode!
The film John refers to is called ‘The Dish’, and was made in about 2000. It’s a great movie, one of the last Aussie films that showcases Aussie larrikinism and wit. Great video, Tom!
I’ve worked on a couple of programs about the dish, in 1984 and 2000, and apart from being able to crawl all over the structure etc, the most memorable part for me was chatting with the astrophysicists working there over dinner. Their descriptions of deep space etc blew my mind.
There's something about spending time among people with planet-sized brains which simultaneously makes you feel smarter but also makes you feel very basic. :)
I was incredibly lucky to walk on The Dish about 25 years ago at an Astronomy open day. It absolutely blew my mind as a young kid. This brought back some memories! Cracking video Tom
I admire these folks for using PDP-11 computers to steer this dish! The engineers of that system can continue to be proud of what they’ve built. This whole complex is made of high-quality, long-lasting parts. Long live the great people who maintain and use this fantastic facility! Long life to the Parkes Telescope!
This was abbsolutely and incredibly fascinating, all the tech in use and all the details you captured, then explained in laypersons' terms. I was picturing a "full tilted" position and saw the edge 60+ feet up; I did NOT expect the rim to come within a few feet of ground! Thank you for taking us on so many grand adventures, Mr. Scott!
How it doesn't rip of the building is the counterweight. At that angle the the counter weight ensures all force is still downwards. Without a counterweight it would fall off the building because the force would be sideways.
Highly, highly, HIGHLY recommended everyone watches "The Dish" from 2000 (starring Sam Neill and Patrick Warburton) -- it's a comedy movie about how a town in rural Australia was chosen to transmit around the world the images from the 1969 moon landing, and the technological challenges they faced way back then. Aussie humour and cinema classic👌🏻
So jealous Tom. I am a Arecibo fanatic, but until they rebuild it, I needed a new favorite terrestrial telescope. Thanks to both of you for showing us a fantastic piece of engineering
John is a very enthusiastic and informative guide, and you can tell he absolutely loves his job. It's always so amazing to see such passionate people sharing what they love, and Tom's sheer indulgence in it is infectious. Another banger!
This feels so nostalgic to watch as I remember going to the Dish for work experience in school with John. Got to use the telescope to collect some data from a neutron star. I recommend people to visit it.
Having been aware of this telescope because of the fantastic film The Dish, I never quite realized the scale of the thing until you were walking around just under it. Nor did I think when you said "...to touching the ground" I didn't ever think that meant quite literally. Absolutely amazing it can do that!
What an absolute legend and an incredible teacher! That feather demonstration absolutely blew my mind, and I think everyone's. That's just incredible. This is why we watch Tom Scott
@Bran Arnold That's the reason behind the sheer size: radio waves sources are generally far away and really weak. For example one of the most important radio frequencies in radio astronomy is the 21cm hydrigen line. It's emitted by a hyperifne transition in the hydrogen atom and it's used to calculate spiral galaxies rotational velocities: the wavelenght is really long, meaning low amounts of energy are emitted. Also, the resolution power of a telescope (how small of an angle can be where it can resolve two things separated by said angle) is wavelenght divided by diameter. So for such long wavelenghts a reaaaaally big diameter is needed
It wasn't until the last 10 seconds that it actually hit me what "tilting the dish towards the ground" meant. For _several_ minutes, I was like haha, Tom's gonna do camera magic and 'hop' off the side of the dish. Just holy cow, the SCALE of this thing (and the building) is so… difficult to fathom.
You have no idea how well timed this was. I live in Australia and today I was actually looking to buy a decent telescope to get into astronomy and astro photography.
A few months ago my brother did an internship here, and when he came back the number 1 thing he talked about was how great John was and how cool it was to go out onto the dish. Honestly, I’m kinda jealous of him, what an amazing experience.
Another top video by Tom Scott and crew. Seeing that massive dish tilt right down to the ground was amazing, it must have been incredible to ride it. What a treat.
I knew you would need to get there sooner or later. It’s amazing how this thing is still in active use and decently reliable well past the intended lifespan.
I visited the parkes telescope a few years back and I can say it was such an amazing experience. Getting to learn the history behind it and the sheer scale of it was just fascinating to me
Having recently had a similar experience when visiting the VLA (albeit with a static dish), I can thoroughly recommend it, if you happen to visit New Mexico at some point! Maybe you could do a climbing tour of landmark radio telescopes? 🤩 And I can tell you, observing with these beauties is even more of a thrill. Best job in the world!
As an engineer, I just want to watch the structure move and stare at the machinery at work. Amazing stuff! (not saying Tom and John aren't good! It's great to see someone as invested in their work and happy to share!... and to see Tom as agog as I would be)
the fact a feather hitting the floor is more energy than has even been collected from the stars is mind blowing to me, it's crazy how amazing technology is
4 days ago
@HaydenHattrick the dude who told tom that is a highly trained professional, as he is the one chosen to show tom around the place. I doubt that he would tell tom misinformation...
But almost all of the energy we use came from the sun. Its directly stored in massive liquid deposits called oil. All of the matter on the planet came out of a star at some point anyway
Tom, thanks so much for this! That gentleman's analogies w the feather and cell phone on the moon were extremely relatable. One thing that would help the video a bit, tho, would be to show a world map or map of Australia and show where this is located. I know where Australia is, but am fairly clueless about locations within Australia... Thanks!
I'm always fascinated by Tom's videos but this one was on a whole new level of interesting for me from a visual and mechanical design perspective. Thank you to Tom and his tour guide!
Now, do yourselves a favour and watch THE best Aussie made movie I've ever come across: The Dish (2000). Classic Australian humour at it's best, wrapped around the real life dramatic event of the moon landing. Still one of my all time favourite movies.
As a radio astronomer, I was so happy to see this video! There really is nothing like going up into a dish - I've been on the Efflesberg radio telescope. I've never observed with Parkes, but I have with another Australian telescope, ATCA (they're both operated by the same institute). It's an amazing feeling when you're observing remotely from the UK, and knowing that you're responsible for such huge things turning and looking at astronomical objects for you. You might be sick of radio astronomy now, but you have got an invite to Jodrell Bank Observatory in your suggestions submission form! Come say hello next time you're up this way. :)
I was in Effelsberg about thirty years ago as a really interested kid (not an astronomer, still became a physicist). I'm still impressed and jealous by you gals and guys getting the bigger toys.. (though Effelsberg is, I believe, no longer operational, isn't it?).
@Jett Nash in short yes. In longer form kinda. The satellites operate on different frequencies mostly to what is being observed and in some places starlink is turned off around the telescopes. If you take a look at their coverage map you'll see a big missing circle in western Australia. That's over the square kilometre array that's being built there. It's much more of an issue for optical astronomy. SpaceX are at least working on it now and all of their future satellites are to be at magnitude -7 so they should be invisible to the naked eye. It'll probably help by not totally flooding the optical sensors but it'll still get in the way probably.
@zyeborm Dad was involved in making part of the mount for the Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Springs. He always said he built toys for scientists.
Can we take a moment to appreciate the camera operator here, who not only kept tom perfectly in frame whilst descending a moving dish, but also kept the shot level whilst doing that, without a horizon!
There are a good few videos like that, and I'm assuming a good portion has to do with a natural sense of balance and footing taking a more subconscious place in the mind since more focus is on placement/aiming of the shot itself. So when things go wonky and Tom is allowed the resources to get fumbly and worried, the camera operator's greater focus is on keeping Tom framed and likely holding back laughs haha
Awesome video, Tom! I've been there, but only on the ground / in the visitors' center. The telescope is spectacular enough from there, but the view inside the dish is amazing 🙂🙃🙂
typical Aussie thinking :) We invent a lot of stuff cause of this sort of style of thinking. Why work hard if there's an easier way to acheive the same result :)
No doubt! I never thought about having the edge of the scope go down to get the equipment into the dish. But then, I should have thought of it. I’ve used the power of a piece of heavy equipment to help assemble and disassemble itself!
That was actually a fantastic explanation! I had no idea so little energy was collected, we know so much from little information. Also: the Alarm it sounded reminds me of regional footy games. Noice
I LOVE this telescope so much! For my 40th birthday in 1999, my 2 daughters asked "Dad, what's THE most important place you want to visit?" - So... here we went! ...Also, "The Dish" (by director Rob Sitch) is perhaps THE most gentle, kind, quirky, fun, and lovely little movie ever made♥♥♥
Tom Scott you are the coolest!!! Thank you so much for the hard work you and your team put into making these videos possible. This, is what Clip-Share is all about ✨
I love how John is having SO much fun showing all of this cool stuff to someone who's excited to hear about it. You can tell he thinks it's really really cool, too.
0:00 - I was totally seeing that opening shot at a very different scale, and thought those little upright rods in the middle distance were the height of a person. Then the manhole opened and blew my mind! 😂
✝️ LORD JESUS DIED & ROSE AGAIN TO PAY THE DEBT OF UR SIN! ✅By Faith in the sacrifice God has made are we saved from the penalty of sin! 🔵Turn from your sin that leads to death & accept His Gift that leads to eternal Life! 💜We are all sinners that need God. No one can say they are perfect to be able to pay their debt of sin. This is why only God could pay the penalty for us, that is merciful Love!
I love how John is having SO much fun showing all of this cool stuff to someone who's excited to hear about it. You can tell he thinks it's really really cool, too.
@Matteo Maximov You could tell when some of the questions Tom asked were about more specific parts and John looked both slightly surprised and really glad to hear those specific questions
One small step for Tom, at the end! I'm not just taking a phrase from space lore in a silly way, I genuinely thought from the beginning that Tom not wearing a harness and relying utterly on correctly repositioning himself to avoid tumbling to disaster was crazy risky. Then it was revealed how the curve lines up with the ground at full deflection wasn't so bad.
Back in college I used to partake in Seti@home, where volunteers used their computers to analyze data from telescope like these. Never found anything but it felt good to be a small part of progress
This is amazing - thank you for going places I never would go to and speaking to people I never would (be able to) talk to. I owe you much regarding my horizon! Thank you!
“The amount of energy the feather expended when it struck the floor is more energy than has ever been collected by every radio telescope ever” what a mind boggling comparison!
I'm not sure about every radio telescope, but there are some you can't even use cars with spark plugs around because the spark to start the combustion will get picked up. The Green Bank Observatory over in West Virginia has to keep a little fleet of diesel cars to navigate the grounds.
no wonder a smartphone, which emits radiation in the order of milliwatts, shines as bright as a bonfire to a telescope like this, even when placed on the moon.
The mic drop moment (or feather, in this case!) at 2:30 is an incredible bit of information and such a powerful demonstration of just how much effort goes into radio-astronomy. And tom's look when he hears it is a testament to that! Brilliant video, and brilliant guide work from John.
The amount of energy the feather expended when it struck the floor is more energy than has ever been collected by every radio telescope ever” what a mind boggling comparison!
As a deep sky astrophotographer, this is one of the videos I’ve understood the best! Really cool to see. I used to visit Goonhilly a lot as a child and the dishes there were so amazing to see, almost ominous figures. Equatorial (and Alt-az) mounts are really fascinating the way they work and are essential to what most astronomers now do. I timelapse my telescope setup pointing at the night sky a lot, but I think most people don’t quite realise they move at an incredibly slow speed making a timelapse necessary to even see the movement.
Immediately intrigued by Tom Scott emerging from his burrow like a science-obsessed badger, and then John held my attention for ten minutes. This is a top-tier Blue Peter segment!
There was previous video that had a similarly enthusiastic and informative expert guide Tom was interviewing although I cannot remember the exact details. I think it was maybe a waterworks or bridge-works?
I grew up watching 'The Dish' and even got to visit Parks as a kid (too young to remember much about it though unfortunately). I've always wanted to ride on it. Tom, you're living my dream!
I loved that. I remember years ago, seeing a programme where a guy was going up to change the aircraft warning light at the top of the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, and he went up inside, on increasingly narrow and rickety spiral stairs, and the opened a door, and it cut to the view from below, and it was a tiny little hatch right at the top of the spire.
Oh wow. I didnt know that massive dish touches ground! I thought it was just gonna tilt a tad and we would be like "oh thats it?!?!" But damn. Imagine how powerful those motors are!
✝️ LORD JESUS DIED & ROSE AGAIN TO PAY THE DEBT OF UR SIN! ✅By Faith in the sacrifice God has made are we saved from the penalty of sin! 🔵Turn from your sin that leads to death & accept His Gift that leads to eternal Life! 💜We are all sinners that need God. No one can say they are perfect to be able to pay their debt of sin. This is why only God could pay the penalty for us, that is merciful Love!
I believe the entire instrument was designed by Barnes Wallis and part of the genius of the design is that clever cantilevering means that when the collector is tilted from vertical, instead of it distorting under gravity, the redirected forces actually tighten up the focus.
The dish itself would make a really cool performance stage for opera. Tilt the dish forward to reveal the inside of the dish to the audience, fill it with light, use the movement of the dish as a "stage curtain" to reveal a modest orchestra and an opera singer inside the dish.
I love how buds was rather enthusiastic to tell scott about how the place runs and works. ALSO holy crap when it was mentioned that it was big I didn't realize until the end when it tilted all the way so they could just hop off the dish onto the ground. She's an old bit of kit, but these old radio-telescopes will keep helping us understand the stars for ages to come.
Physics hasn't changed in the last 60 years, so machinery like this can just keep on chugging. Virtually all the upgrades they've made in that time were in how they handle information, either from the signals they receive or for controlling the telescope's position and movement.
As an Aussie, I need to let you all in on a little secret: John the Dish Wrangler might love his job, but he would have been really keen to see the end of Friday afternoon so that he could go home and sink a few tinnies with his mates. Signed: Mick, A guy who also loves science and works in a pathology lab at a major hospital… also doing a science every day 😊
I'm not entirely sure where I expected it to end, but I spent this whole time wondering why there was no harnesses or anything, because what if you just fell off the edge. I was entirely unprepared for the dish being so big that, fully tilted, it just... touches the ground.
And now, a blatant plug for the podcast I host, Lateral! Episodes with William Osman, Simone Giertz, Devin "Legal Eagle" Stone, and loads more people are over at lateralcast.com - and there are highlights at clip-share.net/user/lateralcast !
Nice
Very nice
@xxxtensioncord it’s a visual podcast that has the visuals taken away for seemingly no good reason
Good 👍 up
i thought you were gonna go skateboarding
This is unreal, the scale of technology never fails to amaze me! Thank you for showcasing this!
@Prince The sand will do that for you eventually.
@Adam Plentl You're correct, the pyramids were tombs, you dont burry somebody in a tomb.
🤓
We had 250m long flying hotels 100 years ago. This is nothing.
@PrinceCuddles um...they were big graves and uh....I guess they had religious importance?
Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how good of a guide John is? Presenting technical (and quite elaborate) information in an easy to understand manner, coupled with little quirks and bits of trivia about the facility without skipping a beat. I assume he has done this many times, but wow! A round of applause!
you are absolutely correct
He’s not just a guide, he is (or was as of three years ago) officially an Operations scientist. Wild.
He needs his own... radio show.
Yup, the fact that he's using comparisons to give his audience a sense of how large things are tells me he's been doing this for a long while
Yep, totally agree.
Tom as a seventy year old Australian I have to say I am very jealous. I have seen the dish from a distance but not up close and personal. Given the number of pieces you have produced featuring heights I find your continued apparent discomfort rather interesting. Please keep producing this material. I really enjoy your work.
yes
@Frank Musgrove always be careful with your satellite dishes after dinner
@Venus bruh he wasn’t talking about Tom, he was talking about himself
@Venus i think ur a lil slow
@Diego Pescia don't matter on maint day I would expect
I love all your stuff, Tom, but this is best video you've done in a long time. The dish is fascinating, John is a great guide, and the fact that you literally WALKED OFF THE TELESCOPE is just amazing. Great episode!
When he hopped onto the ground I legit let out a “that was freaking awesome.” I had no clue it would go that far.
The film John refers to is called ‘The Dish’, and was made in about 2000. It’s a great movie, one of the last Aussie films that showcases Aussie larrikinism and wit. Great video, Tom!
@Vigilant Cosmic Penguin it’s a widely known and understood noun here in Australia.
"so imagine there's a basketball with two valves"
@Vigilant Cosmic Penguin do you overreact like this every time you see a new word? Larrikinism would be the behaviour of larrikins.
I'm surprised the movie didn't get a bigger audience. I mean, it had Sam Neill in it!
@Vigilant Cosmic Penguin Perfectly normal where I'm from 🙂
I’ve worked on a couple of programs about the dish, in 1984 and 2000, and apart from being able to crawl all over the structure etc, the most memorable part for me was chatting with the astrophysicists working there over dinner. Their descriptions of deep space etc blew my mind.
There's something about spending time among people with planet-sized brains which simultaneously makes you feel smarter but also makes you feel very basic. :)
I was incredibly lucky to walk on The Dish about 25 years ago at an Astronomy open day. It absolutely blew my mind as a young kid. This brought back some memories! Cracking video Tom
I admire these folks for using PDP-11 computers to steer this dish! The engineers of that system can continue to be proud of what they’ve built. This whole complex is made of high-quality, long-lasting parts. Long live the great people who maintain and use this fantastic facility! Long life to the Parkes Telescope!
I was so excited to hear them mention the PDP-11 that it distracted me from the rest of the video for a while. DEC made great computers.
I'm amazed it's still using a pdp11 as well! It was, is, a great machine, but WHEN it finally breaks, where in the world will they get parts?
This was abbsolutely and incredibly fascinating, all the tech in use and all the details you captured, then explained in laypersons' terms. I was picturing a "full tilted" position and saw the edge 60+ feet up; I did NOT expect the rim to come within a few feet of ground! Thank you for taking us on so many grand adventures, Mr. Scott!
How the dish at that angle doesn't rip off from the building is quite interesting
There's a huge counterweight on the other side to keep it balanced.
How it doesn't rip of the building is the counterweight. At that angle the the counter weight ensures all force is still downwards.
Without a counterweight it would fall off the building because the force would be sideways.
Didn't they say the satellite wasn't attached?
frr
@Riesenfriese The counterweight had such a small volume compared to the large parabola part... The material must have been very dense.
Being an RF engineer that worked at a step site like this but with a 72 antenna; this was my favorite video so far. Absolutely perfect.
John is so knowledgable you can really see how passionate he is about his work. Incredible interview!
Highly, highly, HIGHLY recommended everyone watches "The Dish" from 2000 (starring Sam Neill and Patrick Warburton) -- it's a comedy movie about how a town in rural Australia was chosen to transmit around the world the images from the 1969 moon landing, and the technological challenges they faced way back then. Aussie humour and cinema classic👌🏻
So jealous Tom. I am a Arecibo fanatic, but until they rebuild it, I needed a new favorite terrestrial telescope. Thanks to both of you for showing us a fantastic piece of engineering
John is a very enthusiastic and informative guide, and you can tell he absolutely loves his job. It's always so amazing to see such passionate people sharing what they love, and Tom's sheer indulgence in it is infectious. Another banger!
Hi
Absolutely agree. He was amazing here.
Even after 10 years you still look the same scott you never will age will you?
Hes just Australian Mate
@Prezo I wish he could present a whole television series! There's so many fascinating things in this 9 minute video!
This feels so nostalgic to watch as I remember going to the Dish for work experience in school with John. Got to use the telescope to collect some data from a neutron star. I recommend people to visit it.
Haha I did the same thing was a great experience
Having been aware of this telescope because of the fantastic film The Dish, I never quite realized the scale of the thing until you were walking around just under it. Nor did I think when you said "...to touching the ground" I didn't ever think that meant quite literally. Absolutely amazing it can do that!
His explanation of how a phone on the moon would be the brightest signal really puts into perspective how much data SIGINT planes can capture
What an absolute legend and an incredible teacher! That feather demonstration absolutely blew my mind, and I think everyone's. That's just incredible. This is why we watch Tom Scott
The part about the energy in the feather hitting the floor being larger than that collected by all radio telescopes ever was _genuinely_ mind blowing.
frr
ok
@Lucius Chiaraviglio It is. You just can't measure anything around the sun.
@Bran Arnold That's the reason behind the sheer size: radio waves sources are generally far away and really weak. For example one of the most important radio frequencies in radio astronomy is the 21cm hydrigen line. It's emitted by a hyperifne transition in the hydrogen atom and it's used to calculate spiral galaxies rotational velocities: the wavelenght is really long, meaning low amounts of energy are emitted.
Also, the resolution power of a telescope (how small of an angle can be where it can resolve two things separated by said angle) is wavelenght divided by diameter. So for such long wavelenghts a reaaaaally big diameter is needed
It wasn't until the last 10 seconds that it actually hit me what "tilting the dish towards the ground" meant. For _several_ minutes, I was like haha, Tom's gonna do camera magic and 'hop' off the side of the dish. Just holy cow, the SCALE of this thing (and the building) is so… difficult to fathom.
Been blessed to do an observation run over there a few years back. Amazing instrument. Awesome to see you stand on top.
You have no idea how well timed this was.
I live in Australia and today I was actually looking to buy a decent telescope to get into astronomy and astro photography.
A few months ago my brother did an internship here, and when he came back the number 1 thing he talked about was how great John was and how cool it was to go out onto the dish. Honestly, I’m kinda jealous of him, what an amazing experience.
John is the perfect guide. His enthusiasm and the way he brings science to life in such an accessible way is amazing. Fantastic
He probably appreciated having a genuinely receptive audience, too, rather than a bunch of hyped up school kids.
John be like : "If it ain't broken, we ain't fixin' it!"
We all know the only reason why Tom was in Parkes was for the Elvis Festival hahaha
You might say that he was *stellar*
Another top video by Tom Scott and crew. Seeing that massive dish tilt right down to the ground was amazing, it must have been incredible to ride it. What a treat.
I knew you would need to get there sooner or later. It’s amazing how this thing is still in active use and decently reliable well past the intended lifespan.
I visited the parkes telescope a few years back and I can say it was such an amazing experience. Getting to learn the history behind it and the sheer scale of it was just fascinating to me
I just want to let Tom know that each of these journeys into these amazing places is a treasure. Thank you very much.
I was there a few months ago. I was blown away by the size of the telescope and amazing astronomical contributions it has made.
Tom Scott is a legend, I never know what his videos will be about but they are always great no matter how interested I think I will be from the title
Having recently had a similar experience when visiting the VLA (albeit with a static dish), I can thoroughly recommend it, if you happen to visit New Mexico at some point! Maybe you could do a climbing tour of landmark radio telescopes? 🤩
And I can tell you, observing with these beauties is even more of a thrill. Best job in the world!
As an engineer, I just want to watch the structure move and stare at the machinery at work. Amazing stuff!
(not saying Tom and John aren't good! It's great to see someone as invested in their work and happy to share!... and to see Tom as agog as I would be)
the fact a feather hitting the floor is more energy than has even been collected from the stars is mind blowing to me, it's crazy how amazing technology is
@HaydenHattrick the dude who told tom that is a highly trained professional, as he is the one chosen to show tom around the place. I doubt that he would tell tom misinformation...
@Al's SUS barn gaming yes, Canberra in Australia. The Tidbinbilla NASA complex is about a 45 minute drive from the city centre.
@Mashy
Canberra Australia?
Or somewhere else
But almost all of the energy we use came from the sun. Its directly stored in massive liquid deposits called oil. All of the matter on the planet came out of a star at some point anyway
It like technically yes but no
Tom, thanks so much for this! That gentleman's analogies w the feather and cell phone on the moon were extremely relatable. One thing that would help the video a bit, tho, would be to show a world map or map of Australia and show where this is located. I know where Australia is, but am fairly clueless about locations within Australia... Thanks!
A map would be cool, for places I don't know. FYI - The "Dish" is roughly 300km (180 miles) NW of Sydney (if you know where Sydney is).
I'm always fascinated by Tom's videos but this one was on a whole new level of interesting for me from a visual and mechanical design perspective. Thank you to Tom and his tour guide!
What a great episode! I love that you showed the inner workings of the telescope!
Now, do yourselves a favour and watch THE best Aussie made movie I've ever come across: The Dish (2000). Classic Australian humour at it's best, wrapped around the real life dramatic event of the moon landing.
Still one of my all time favourite movies.
As a radio astronomer, I was so happy to see this video! There really is nothing like going up into a dish - I've been on the Efflesberg radio telescope. I've never observed with Parkes, but I have with another Australian telescope, ATCA (they're both operated by the same institute). It's an amazing feeling when you're observing remotely from the UK, and knowing that you're responsible for such huge things turning and looking at astronomical objects for you. You might be sick of radio astronomy now, but you have got an invite to Jodrell Bank Observatory in your suggestions submission form! Come say hello next time you're up this way. :)
@Mike's Tropical Tech: Don't Panic. Kindly help them find their towels.
I was in Effelsberg about thirty years ago as a really interested kid (not an astronomer, still became a physicist). I'm still impressed and jealous by you gals and guys getting the bigger toys.. (though Effelsberg is, I believe, no longer operational, isn't it?).
@David Lowery epic
@Jett Nash in short yes. In longer form kinda. The satellites operate on different frequencies mostly to what is being observed and in some places starlink is turned off around the telescopes. If you take a look at their coverage map you'll see a big missing circle in western Australia. That's over the square kilometre array that's being built there.
It's much more of an issue for optical astronomy. SpaceX are at least working on it now and all of their future satellites are to be at magnitude -7 so they should be invisible to the naked eye. It'll probably help by not totally flooding the optical sensors but it'll still get in the way probably.
@zyeborm Dad was involved in making part of the mount for the Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Springs. He always said he built toys for scientists.
Tom, you visit the most amazing places. Thanks so much for bringing us along!
I love all of Tom's videos, but this is something special. I'm so jealous, I would absolutely love to ride the telescope!
This is Amazing! The eternal science nerd in me thanks John, you and crew 😂
I like how Tom is afraid of heights but keeps going to high places to stand on metal mesh
Can we take a moment to appreciate the camera operator here, who not only kept tom perfectly in frame whilst descending a moving dish, but also kept the shot level whilst doing that, without a horizon!
@Thore Grimm Or he had a plumb-bob hanging from the camera. 😉🙃
Guys, he just wanted to mindlessly compliment someone. It's just how some humans are.
If there's no horizon, how do you know he kept the shot level?
And if you can answer that question, then you know how the camera operator did it. 🙂
There are a good few videos like that, and I'm assuming a good portion has to do with a natural sense of balance and footing taking a more subconscious place in the mind since more focus is on placement/aiming of the shot itself. So when things go wonky and Tom is allowed the resources to get fumbly and worried, the camera operator's greater focus is on keeping Tom framed and likely holding back laughs haha
This guy is still living in the 60's xD
Awesome video, Tom! I've been there, but only on the ground / in the visitors' center. The telescope is spectacular enough from there, but the view inside the dish is amazing 🙂🙃🙂
The editing of this video was understatedly perfect. I loved seeing the sudden cuts to Tom just walking down the disc.
Tom being amused by simple/understated observations is always very entertaining.
Tom, your work over the years shows what a genuine Clip-Share you are.
The idea that they can use the telescope itself as a giant crane is ingenious.
typical Aussie thinking :) We invent a lot of stuff cause of this sort of style of thinking. Why work hard if there's an easier way to acheive the same result :)
Makes perfect sense, too! You already have an extremely robust and heavyweight piece of machinery to lift things high up, why not use it?
like treebeard picking up a hobbit
@Dan Geary Mobile crane? I think self-assembling cranes are such a cool design principle
No doubt!
I never thought about having the edge of the scope go down to get the equipment into the dish.
But then, I should have thought of it.
I’ve used the power of a piece of heavy equipment to help assemble and disassemble itself!
A truly fascinating tour, with a marvellous guide. The feather explanation was quite astonishing.
That was actually a fantastic explanation! I had no idea so little energy was collected, we know so much from little information.
Also: the Alarm it sounded reminds me of regional footy games. Noice
I LOVE this telescope so much! For my 40th birthday in 1999, my 2 daughters asked "Dad, what's THE most important place you want to visit?" - So... here we went! ...Also, "The Dish" (by director Rob Sitch) is perhaps THE most gentle, kind, quirky, fun, and lovely little movie ever made♥♥♥
Tom Scott you are the coolest!!! Thank you so much for the hard work you and your team put into making these videos possible.
This, is what Clip-Share is all about ✨
I swear, Tom, the best thing you and your team does is find passionate experts on fascinating topics and simply let them shine.
Totally, such a well crafted way of telling stories.
Yes, this guy, while rather matter of fact, was also BRILLIANT with his explanations.
I love how John is having SO much fun showing all of this cool stuff to someone who's excited to hear about it. You can tell he thinks it's really really cool, too.
0:00 - I was totally seeing that opening shot at a very different scale, and thought those little upright rods in the middle distance were the height of a person. Then the manhole opened and blew my mind! 😂
What a brilliant tour guide! Clearly they are very passionate about the telescope.
omg this is so amazing! so much cleverness built into this! the whole building is blowing my mind! thanks Tom for sharing :)
I love when Tom visits something like this and gets to get a tour from someone who is clearly very passionate about what they do.
✝️ LORD JESUS DIED & ROSE AGAIN TO PAY THE DEBT OF UR SIN!
✅By Faith in the sacrifice God has made are we saved from the penalty of sin!
🔵Turn from your sin that leads to death & accept His Gift that leads to eternal Life!
💜We are all sinners that need God. No one can say they are perfect to be able to pay their debt of sin. This is why only God could pay the penalty for us, that is merciful Love!
Also good sense of humour too
you can tell that the astronomer is very passionate about his job, I love it.
Yes, it was quite an interesting excursion to the plate. All the time it seemed to me that it was about to take off. Thanks for this video.
Welcome to Parkes and good to see our friend John. The most down to earth person you will ever meet in your life.
This is such a marvel of engineering and a testament to how amazing people can be that it makes me feel so happy and so sad that I just can’t explain
I love how John is having SO much fun showing all of this cool stuff to someone who's excited to hear about it. You can tell he thinks it's really really cool, too.
Yes they were both just in their element :))
@Matteo Maximov You could tell when some of the questions Tom asked were about more specific parts and John looked both slightly surprised and really glad to hear those specific questions
And also that Tom can easily understand all the technical bits
It reminds me of the people on "smartereveryday"
After all, who wouldn't?
One small step for Tom, at the end! I'm not just taking a phrase from space lore in a silly way, I genuinely thought from the beginning that Tom not wearing a harness and relying utterly on correctly repositioning himself to avoid tumbling to disaster was crazy risky. Then it was revealed how the curve lines up with the ground at full deflection wasn't so bad.
Such a very COOL way to spend the day! Thank you for this awesome insight into a truly cool piece of tech!
Back in college I used to partake in Seti@home, where volunteers used their computers to analyze data from telescope like these. Never found anything but it felt good to be a small part of progress
This is amazing - thank you for going places I never would go to and speaking to people I never would (be able to) talk to. I owe you much regarding my horizon! Thank you!
“The amount of energy the feather expended when it struck the floor is more energy than has ever been collected by every radio telescope ever” what a mind boggling comparison!
I'm not sure about every radio telescope, but there are some you can't even use cars with spark plugs around because the spark to start the combustion will get picked up. The Green Bank Observatory over in West Virginia has to keep a little fleet of diesel cars to navigate the grounds.
no wonder a smartphone, which emits radiation in the order of milliwatts, shines as bright as a bonfire to a telescope like this, even when placed on the moon.
It was such a simple yet superbly powerful demonstration.
Imagine theres an alien radio wave that hit directly at Tom at the time
The mic drop moment (or feather, in this case!) at 2:30 is an incredible bit of information and such a powerful demonstration of just how much effort goes into radio-astronomy. And tom's look when he hears it is a testament to that! Brilliant video, and brilliant guide work from John.
The amount of energy the feather expended when it struck the floor is more energy than has ever been collected by every radio telescope ever” what a mind boggling comparison!
As a deep sky astrophotographer, this is one of the videos I’ve understood the best! Really cool to see. I used to visit Goonhilly a lot as a child and the dishes there were so amazing to see, almost ominous figures.
Equatorial (and Alt-az) mounts are really fascinating the way they work and are essential to what most astronomers now do. I timelapse my telescope setup pointing at the night sky a lot, but I think most people don’t quite realise they move at an incredibly slow speed making a timelapse necessary to even see the movement.
Now I find this very interesting and would love to do this!
Immediately intrigued by Tom Scott emerging from his burrow like a science-obsessed badger, and then John held my attention for ten minutes. This is a top-tier Blue Peter segment!
Someone should draw tom scott as a badger!
Did he see his own shadow though? Or are we cursed with another decade of anti science rhetoric? ;-)
thank you yet again Tom, another fantastic episode, and I will catch up with the podcast
That was a great video, I never knew they could tilt that much
Thank you for coming to Australia! And also what a fabulous tour guide you had. Well done John
Awesome video, really interesting and an amazing passionate guide as well!
You can tell that John is passionate about his work. The way he is so excited to talk about all of this is great.
There was previous video that had a similarly enthusiastic and informative expert guide Tom was interviewing although I cannot remember the exact details. I think it was maybe a waterworks or bridge-works?
With that job who wouldn't be.
wow, john is the best guide I ever seen. he really love his job
Amazing! I'm a new fan mr. Tom and I find these videos splendid!
I grew up watching 'The Dish' and even got to visit Parks as a kid (too young to remember much about it though unfortunately). I've always wanted to ride on it. Tom, you're living my dream!
Knowing you've been filming in Australia, as soon as I saw this I knew what it was. I love that this is like a super slow motion carnival ride 😂
This has to be one of the top 10 Tom Scott openings, the cold cut to Tom popping out of a manhole is too good
@CyberWomble Then they switch the telescope on and detect Clanger whistles
Should've been accompanied with a Clanger's whistle.
I loved that. I remember years ago, seeing a programme where a guy was going up to change the aircraft warning light at the top of the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, and he went up inside, on increasingly narrow and rickety spiral stairs, and the opened a door, and it cut to the view from below, and it was a tiny little hatch right at the top of the spire.
"Hey, Tom Scott here! Do radio waves actually exists?"
Totally agree! 👍
Oh wow. I didnt know that massive dish touches ground! I thought it was just gonna tilt a tad and we would be like "oh thats it?!?!" But damn. Imagine how powerful those motors are!
'The Dish' is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen and I am honestly so jealous of Scott for being on site. Genuinely fascinating vid! Bravo!
Lovely intro, Tom. Very smooth transition from hole to telescope.
Great video Tom, this feels surreal because I live only a hour away form the telescope and visited it multiple times.
I'm so stoked that other people get to see how dope our country is; The Dish is a genuine Aussie icon
@Westerly Winds I can see where your coming from there, he does sound a bit South African.
Oh I thought it was in South Africa. The guy with the helmet on sounded South African to me.
✝️ LORD JESUS DIED & ROSE AGAIN TO PAY THE DEBT OF UR SIN!
✅By Faith in the sacrifice God has made are we saved from the penalty of sin!
🔵Turn from your sin that leads to death & accept His Gift that leads to eternal Life!
💜We are all sinners that need God. No one can say they are perfect to be able to pay their debt of sin. This is why only God could pay the penalty for us, that is merciful Love!
Hey i know you! You make hermitcraft remixes
@Eric VandenAvond Here's to! The more people the merrier over here. Much love from Australia
I believe the entire instrument was designed by Barnes Wallis and part of the genius of the design is that clever cantilevering means that when the collector is tilted from vertical, instead of it distorting under gravity, the redirected forces actually tighten up the focus.
This has got to be one of my favourite Tom Scott Episodes
Incredible . You really knocked this one out of the park Tom. Should have been an hour long !
The dish itself would make a really cool performance stage for opera. Tilt the dish forward to reveal the inside of the dish to the audience, fill it with light, use the movement of the dish as a "stage curtain" to reveal a modest orchestra and an opera singer inside the dish.
I love how buds was rather enthusiastic to tell scott about how the place runs and works.
ALSO holy crap when it was mentioned that it was big I didn't realize until the end when it tilted all the way so they could just hop off the dish onto the ground.
She's an old bit of kit, but these old radio-telescopes will keep helping us understand the stars for ages to come.
Do yourself a favour & watch "The Dish". It's the most heart warming space movie ever.🙂👍
Physics hasn't changed in the last 60 years, so machinery like this can just keep on chugging. Virtually all the upgrades they've made in that time were in how they handle information, either from the signals they receive or for controlling the telescope's position and movement.
That was one of your best Tom. Really great film. Thanks.
As an Aussie, I need to let you all in on a little secret: John the Dish Wrangler might love his job, but he would have been really keen to see the end of Friday afternoon so that he could go home and sink a few tinnies with his mates.
Signed: Mick,
A guy who also loves science and works in a pathology lab at a major hospital… also doing a science every day
😊
Seeing an “old” Apple Xserve / Xraid rack still be used is very interesting!
I know it’s a small thing, but as a retrocomputing enthusiast seeing a mighty PDP-11 from DEC still “on duty” made my heart pump a tiny bit faster ❤
I'm not entirely sure where I expected it to end, but I spent this whole time wondering why there was no harnesses or anything, because what if you just fell off the edge. I was entirely unprepared for the dish being so big that, fully tilted, it just... touches the ground.
Same here
@Timothy McLean huh
If you build big enough, eventually you stop needing safety equipment.