Josef Klepešta

Year of birth : 1895

Year of death: 1976

Nušl Prize for 1941

Josef Klepešta (* 4 June 1895, † 12 July 1976) was an important Czech astronomer.

Membership card of Josef Klepešta, founding member of ČAS Autor: ČAS — Membership card of Josef Klepešta, founding member of ČAS
*Autor: ČAS*

He was a co-founder of the Czech Astronomical Society and for many years an indispensable personality of the society's life. Even before the founding of the society, he often visited Baron A. Kraus in Pardubice to get valuable advice from him in the creation and adoption of the statutes of the newly formed Czech Astronomical Society. In the years 1926-1943 he served as the executive director of the society, was instrumental in the construction of the Štefánik Observatory and had a large share in the negotiations for the purchase of the main telescope. After 1945 he cooperated with the Astronomical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and from mid-1965 until his death he worked at the Prague Observatory and Planetarium.

Klepešta was an avid photographer of the night sky, even taking photographs of the Fr. Fischer Podolí Observatory he took a long exposure under moonlight. His emblematic photograph was the image of the galaxy M31 in Andromeda with the flyby of a very bright bolide. This photograph went down in the history of astronomy and Klepešta carried it with him as his personal ID throughout his life.
In the early 1920s, there was a shortage of astronomical literature for CAS members. Josef Klepešta therefore came up with the idea of founding the Library of Friends of the Sky in 1925, which published a number of specialized publications, catalogues and astronomical charts. Klepešta financed the edition, and at the same time a part of the sales went to the Society's treasury for the publication of the magazine Říše hvězd. Particularly interesting in Klepesta's edition were the beautiful "Atlas of the Northern Sky" by František Schüller, its second volume by Karel Novák and the Map of the Moon by Karel Anděl. All of these publications were also published abroad. After 1945, Klepešta was behind the idea of the new star atlases of A. Bečvář, which spread all over the world in a short time.
Klepešta was the soul of the Czech Astronomical Society and a man who never left his friends. He was one of the few who commuted to Bečvář in Brandýs nad Labem even after his politically forced departure from the High Tatras. The asteroid (3978) Klepešta is named after him.

Text of the Štěpán Kovář, translated by Josef Chlachula, more see https://www.hvezdarna-fp.eu/products/klepesta-josef/(Czech)