Antoni Przybylski

World War II At the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the Polish Army and served as an artillery officer during the defense of Warsaw, after which he was taken prisoner and interned in Mecklenburg. There, he spent five months as a manual laborer for the Postmaster General's Department before coming to the attention of Richard Woolley, Przybylski received the first doctorate bestowed by ANU, for his thesis on the theory of stellar atmospheres.

In 1957, Woolley was replaced as director of Mount Stromlo by Bart Bok, who mandated that the observatory's theoreticians also participate in direct observation; this led directly to Przybylski's discovery that HD101065 is a peculiar star. Przybylski also was the first to attempt a fine analysis of a high dispersion spectrum of a star in the Magellanic Clouds.

Later life

After retiring from Mount Stromlo, Przybylski lived at ANU's John XXIII college and studied botany, zoology, and geology gaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Sciences in 1984 at the age of 71, a year before his death.