Zdeněk Kopal

Zdeněk Kopal ( born April 4, 1914 in Litomyšl, † 23 June 1993 ) was an astronomer, who was born in the Czech Republic and grew up and later lived mainly in England.

In the early days of his astronomical career, his work area was the variable stars, in particular, the eclipsing binaries. Later he worked in the field of astronomy of the solar system. In the 1960s, he charted with tens of thousands of photos, the surface of the moon. He used the observatory on the Pic du Midi de Bigorre in the French Pyrenees. This project was in preparation for the Apollo missions and was funded by NASA.

The asteroid (2628) copal was named in his honor after him.