Harold "Hal" Zirin (October 7, 1929 – January 3, 2012) was an American solar astronomer also known as Captain Corona to a generation of Caltech Astronomy students.
During his college years, Zirin played for the Harvard football team, participated in the hammer throw, and spent his summers working on the family's chicken farm in Vineland, New Jersey.
After a brief stint at Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, where he could not obtain clearance due to his father's association and membership in the Communist Party, Zirin returned to Harvard as a teaching fellow.
Harold Zirin moved to Colorado to work at the High Altitude Observatory, which specialized in solar research, in 1954, where he met his wife, Mary Noble Fleming, and married in 1957.
Captain Corona (Zirin in a super-hero body-suit with cape and beret), seated with a small telescope in the flatbed of the observatory truck, took part one year in the Old Miners Day Parade at Big Bear.
After retiring from Caltech in 1998, Harold and Mary Zirin provided funding to National Jewish Health in 2005 for an Endowed Chair in Pulmonary Biology.