On the last Monday of each month, KRTS’s Talk at Ten features a conversation with an astronomer from The McDonald Observatory. In this episode, we speak with JJ Hermes, an astronomer specializing in white dwarf stars and their planets, and the measurement of gravitational waves from binary star systems.
He's also part of the Whole Earth Telescope project. The Whole Earth Telescope is a network of over 2 dozen telescopes across the globe, allowing astronomers to continuously view a portion the night sky for weeks or months at a time.
The KRTS listening area is lucky enough to be home to some of the darkest skies in the nation. The McDonald Observatory’s facilities and telescopes are located on Mount Locke and Mount Fowlkes outside of Fort Davis, Texas. The observatory is a research unit of The University of Texas at Austin, and is one of the world’s leading centers for astronomical research, teaching, and public education and outreach. The McDonald Observatory celebrates its 75th Anniversary in 2014. Tune in to Talk at Ten on June 24 to hear the next conversation from this fascinating series.
