14974 Počátky, provisional designation 1997 SK1, is a stony background asteroid from the middle region of the asteroid belt, approximately 4 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by Czech astronomer Miloš Tichý at Kleť Observatory in the Czech Republic on 22 September 1997, and named for the Czech town Počátky.[8]
Two rotational lightcurves for this asteroid were obtained from photometric observations made at the U.S Palomar Transient Factory, California, in August 2010 and February 2012. The lightcurves gave a rotation period of 21.7277±0.0320 and 21.7079±0.0320 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.57 and 0.68 in magnitude, respectively (U=2/2).[6]
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Počátky measures 4.0 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.23,[4][5] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link (CALL) assumes an untypically low albedo for stony asteroids of 0.10, and thus calculates a larger diameter of 4.9 kilometers.[3]