Arthur Edwin Covington (21 September 1913 – 17 March 2001) was a Canadian physicist who made the first radio astronomy measurements in Canada.
He showed an early interest in astronomy, and had built a 5-inch (130 mm) refractor telescope after meeting members of the local chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
The resolution of the device, about seven degrees, made it impossible to "pick out" a spot on the Sun's surface for study, making a demonstration of the claim difficult.
An opportunity to directly measure this possibility presented itself on November 23, 1946, when a partial solar eclipse passed over the Ottawa area, and Covington was able to conclusively demonstrate that the microwave emissions dropped off precipitously when the Moon covered a particularly large sunspot.
[4] It was entirely by accident that the original instrument operated on frequencies suitable to detection of the 10.7 cm signal, and it had never been intended for "production" use.
As the Radio Field Station was still actively being used for radar development, and causing heavy interference as a result, a new location was selected about five miles (8 km) away at Goth Hill.
The new telescope consisted of a 150 ft (46 m) long section of 3 by 1½ inch metal waveguide cut with slots in locations to create a simple interferometer with a fan-shaped area of sensitivity.
[1] The new telescope started operation in 1951, allowing them to directly measure the flux from the Sun's corona and the temperature of the regions above sunspots (about 1,500,000 °C).
A new 6 ft (1.8 m) parabolic dish solar flux telescope was built in 1960, operating in parallel before taking over duties from the Goth Hill instrument in 1962.
The original solar observatories remained in use until 1990 when funding drawdowns at the NRC forced the closure of the entire Algonquin site.