Gordon Allen Newkirk Jr.

Gordon Allen Newkirk Jr. (September 12, 1928 – December 21, 1985) was an American astrophysicist.

In 1955 he began working at the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado.

He perfected the Lyot coronagraph over a period of twenty years for use as a space borne telescope.

In 1973, he was the principal investigator for experiments on the Skylab spacecraft (while working for HAO).

He published many papers on the solar corona, including "a benchmark depiction of coronal magnetic fields."