Antonín Mrkos

His studies were interrupted by the onset of World War II, and in 1945 he became a staff member at the Skalnaté Pleso Observatory in Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia).

He was the second Czech in Antarctica and the first Czechoslovak to reach the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility as a member of the 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1957–1959).

He returned to Antarctica as the head of the four-member Czechoslovakian crew in the seventh Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1961–1963).

[2] 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.