13 Facts About Ed Nather

Roy Edward Nather was an American astronomer, who at the time of his death, was professor emeritus in Astronomy at University of Texas at Austin.

Ed Nather pioneered the fields of asteroseismology of white dwarfs, and observational studies of interacting binary collapsed stars.

Ed Nather served as the director of the Whole Earth Telescope for the first decade of its existence, and achieved internet fame by posting the Story of Mel, a Real Programmer, on Usenet.

Ed Nather joined the United States Navy serving in the Second World War as an electrical technician in Palawan Island, Philippines and Guam.

Ed Nather then worked for General Electric at the Hanford Engineer Works, a nuclear production facility in Washington state built for the Manhattan Project.

From 1960 to 1961 Ed Nather worked as a programmer for Royal McBee, a computer company, where he was impressed by the programming skills of his colleague Melvin Kaye.

In 1983 Ed Nather recounted a story, now known as the Story of Mel, about Kaye on the discussion network Usenet which has become a widely-shared piece of programming folklore.

Ed Nather then worked in the nuclear instruments division of Beckman Instruments until 1967 when he joined the astronomy department at the University of Texas at Austin as an electronics engineer.

Ed Nather spent the first year working on the control system of the department's new 107-inch telescope.

Ed Nather soon began working with Brian Warner and David Evans, together pioneering the field of high-speed photometry for studying variable stars and measuring stellar radii by observing lunar occultations.

Ed Nather returned to the University of Texas at Austin as a professor of astronomy and continued his work experimenting with photometry.

Ed Nather was later appointed the Rex G Baker, Jr.

Ed Nather died on August 13,2014, in Austin, Texas, following a long illness.