It was discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at Heidelberg Observatory in the middle of World War II on 14 January 1942.

[4][9]: 23  It orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 3.0–3.1 AU once every 5 years and 4 months (1,950 days).

[3] In January 2012, a rotational lightcurve of Kresák was obtained from photometric observations at the Palomar Transient Factory in California.

In the R-band, it gave a rotation period of 19.10 hours with a brightness variation of 0.19 magnitude (U=2).

[6] According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Kresák measures 21.7 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has an albedo of 0.114,[5] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for carbonaceous asteroids of 0.057 and calculates a diameter of 26.1 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 11.64.