The Dish - Definition and Overview

The Parkes 64 metre radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia (the bigger of the two) Picture credit: CSIRO

The Dish is a 2001 film based on the true story of the radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, that was the southern hemisphere connection to NASA for the Apollo missions to the moon. The signal received in Parkes ended up being responsible for the televised live footage of the first steps on the moon in the Apollo 11 mission.

Although based on true events the movie uses fictional characters and alters the details for dramatic effect. The movie was directed by Rob Sitch and starred Sam Neill. It was written by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, Jane Kennedy and Rob Sitch.

At present, the Parkes Observatory featured in the movie is also used as part of search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) and planned for use in the SETI@home distributed computing project.

The Dish is also the common name for a radio telescope which sits in the foothills above Stanford University and is currently still in use.