Antonín Mrkos, a Czech astronomer, born on 27 January, 1918 (died 29 May, 1996). He became a staff member at the Skalnaté Pleso Observatory in Slovakia. It was from here that he carried out his extremely active cometary programme and became the discoverer of several unusual comets, the most famous of them the bright Comet 1957d. During his time in Antarctica he was studying auroras among other things. From 1966 to 1991 he was director of Kleť observatory. Beginning in 1968 he made photographic observations at Kleť and extended this activity to minor planets in 1977. For many years he was the most regular contributor of data to the Minor Planet Center. He was President of Commission 6 from 1985 until 1988 (and Vice President from 1982 until 1985). He was associate professor at the Charles University in Prague and the University of South Bohemia. He discovered or co-discovered thirteen comets. Among these were the periodic comets 18D/Perrine–Mrkos, 45P/Honda–Mrkos–Pajdušáková, 124P/Mrkos and 143P/Kowal–Mrkos. He also discovered the bright non-periodic comet C/1957 P1 (or, in the nomenclature of the time, comet 1957d). He discovered a number of asteroids (273 in total), including the Amor asteroid, 5797 Bivoj, Trojan asteroid, 3451 Mentor and 6758 Jesseowens in honour of Jesse Owens. 1832 Mrkos is named in his honour. He also named asteroid 2747 Český Krumlov after the historic town of the same name. Another Main-belt asteroid 3357 Tolstikov (1984 FT) was named in honour of Yevgeny Tolstikov. Reference: springerreference/docs/html/chapterdbid/58988.html, Retrieved 19 March, 2012
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:58:01 +0000
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