Dean Regas and Anna Hehman from the Cincinnati Observatory will voice Cincinnati's newest podcast, "Looking Up," starting Wednesday, July 12.
The 20- to 25-minute program -- the first produced by WVXU-FM exclusively as a downloadable audio file and not for a broadcast -- will be available on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, says Kevin Reynolds, the Cincinnati Public Radio community relations manager who produces the podcast.
It was a marriage made in the stars for Cincinnati Public Radio and Regas, outreach astronomer for the Cincinnati Observatory and co-host of PBS' "Star Gazers" series. Reynolds says Regas "was looking for the right partner for a podcast." Regas says he had "been working with WVXU for a long time, and they thought astronomy would be a big hit."
"Looking Up" will be for everyone, not just astronomy experts. "Innate curiosity is all you need," says Regas, who will appear on WVXU-FM's "Cincinnati Edition" at 1 p.m. Wednesday talking about the Mars rover.
Hehman, the observatory's development director, will make sure Regas doesn't drift too deep into space. "She works at the observatory, but she's not an astronomer. She's our non-expert, our audience representative," Reynolds says.
"It's something people can listen to on their way home to pick up some information and a few laughs," Reynolds says.
Regas has a long association with Cincinnati Public Radio. He did recorded interviews for the old weekend version of "Cincinnati Edition," before live weekday broadcasts began four years ago. Here's a link to his 2012 interview with Bill Prady, co-creator and executive producer of CBS' hit "Big Bang Theory" sitcom.
Josh Elstro engineers "Looking Up" with producer Reynolds. They produce and engineer the Cincinnati StoryCorps segments airing Wednesdays on WVXU-FM (91.7) and WMUB-FM (88.5) and available online at wvxu.org and on the WVXU mobile app.
You can subscribe to "Looking Up" on iTunes or go to the "Looking Up" page on the WVXU website.
PBS' "Star Gazers" show with Regas and James Albury, produced by the WPBT-TV in Miami, Fla., airs on WCET-TV (Channel 48) and WPTO-TV (Channel 16).
