After receiving his Ph.D in Astrophysics, Gordon Newkirk began his patient quest to observe the solar corona. Using an externally-occulted Lyot coronagraph mounted on manned and unmanned balloons, Newkirk and colleagues measured brightness at 40,000 to 80,000 feet, often with disastrous results. Yet, in 1965, Newkirk's team obrained the first detailed observations of the outer corona outside of an eclipse. Those balloon observations laid the groundwork for successful spaceborne experiments by the High Altitude Observatory.
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