During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, total solar eclipses provided an excellent opportunity to develop and consolidate new astrophysical techniques. Every eclipse became an occasion to learn about the nature of the sun by spectroscopic, polariscopic, and photographic observation. This paper deals with the particular case of the total solar eclipse of 30 August 1905. Several foreign expeditions went Spain, the only European country where the eclipse was seen as total, to study this astronomical event. The eclipse of 1905, as happened with these of 1900 and 1912 whose path of totality crossed the Iberian Peninsula, not only encouraged the development of astrophysics in Spain, but also was a crucial element for the consolidation of an astrophysical community in Spain and its incorporation to the international scientific community.