According to Meghnad Saha, "the first astrophysical work of any importance in India was by the French astronomer Jansen who, in 1868, observed a total solar eclipse of the sun passing over Guntur in the Madras Presidency and applied the spectroscope to the sun during the moments of totality." He observed a line close to and on the violet side of the yellow line of sodium. This line was also observed independently by Lockyer who named it as 'Helium'. Thirty years after that the total solar eclipse passing over Buxar was observed by Lockyer. Evershed and Naegamvela. Evershed became the director of Kodaikanal Laboratory in 1911. These observations led him to the discovery of radial motion in sunspots and concluded simultaneously with Fowler, Hale, Mitchell and Adams that the spectra of spots was similar to that of the K-class of stars.
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