The 64 metre at Parkes is a completely steerable alt-azimuth dish. It is the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. It was inaugurated in October 1961.
This dish completed two surveys: at 408MHz during the mid 1960s and at 2.7GHz during the early 1970s. A whole range of radio objects from Quasars to Pulsars have been observed over the years. The famous dish has also been involved in space communications, most notably for NASA during the first manned moon landing of Apollo 11 in July 1969. In 2005 it relayed images and data from the Huygens probe during its landing on Titan during the Cassini Huygens Mission (NASA-ESA).
The observatory is situated north of the town of Parkes, which is in the outback of New South Wales, Australia. Photo taken in 2002.
The 5 metre (or 200 inch) reflector at Mount Palomar for many years epitomised the largest telescope in the world. First light occured in 1948.
It is situated in the mountains of southern California, north-east of San Diego. Photo taken in 2006.
There is also the famous 1.2m Oschin Schmidt telescope.
Opened in 1888, Lick Observatory has some famous telescopes: 36 inch Lick Refractor; 36 inch Crossley Reflector and the Shane 3m Reflector.
It is situated on Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, California. Photo taken in 2004.