Els Eclipsis totals de Sol: un punt d'inflexió en el desenvolupament de l'astronomia i l'astrofísica a l'Espanya de principis del segle XX

Abstract

The total solar eclipse of 28 May 1900 was a turning point for astronomy in Spain. The visit of foreign astronomical expeditions to Spain encouraged Spanish astronomers to move from observational activities, mainly devoted to positional astronomy, into the application of new astrophysical techniques. In opposition to what happened in the late nineteenth century, and as the study of the total solar eclipse expeditions of 1900 shows, an important part of the research programmes pursued and astronomical instruments employed by Spanish astronomers were similar to those of countries such as Great Britain and France. As a consequence, this total solar eclipse not only raised interest in astronomy and astrophysics in Spain, but also led to the inclusion of Spanish scholars into an international astronomical and astrophysical community immersed itself in a process of re-organisation.