Astrophiz 75: The Eagle has landed

Today we are at the NASA/CSIRO Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex at Tidbinbilla in Australia, and we are speaking with Glen Nagle, who is the CSIRO’s outreach and administration lead and NASA operations support officer.

Glen tells us how the technicians crewing the 26m dish at the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station were the only ones capable of receiving and re-transmitting clear images of the first 8 minutes of Neil Armstrong's descent from the Eagle Lunar Module and his first small steps on the moon on July 20 1969.  It's a fabulous story, and Glen then continues to tell us how the CDSCC is using the 70m and 43m dishes to talk to missions doing science around sun, most of the planets in our solar system and beyond.

For observers and astrophotographers, in 'What's Up Doc', Dr Ian 'Astroblog' Musgrave tells us what to look for in the morning, evening & night skies. In this episode all the action is in the morning sky and an easy-to-find comet for binocular and possibly naked eye viewing. He also outlines some of the highlights of the coming year.