Astronomy is a scienti?c discipline that has developed a rapid and impressive growth in Spain.
Thirty years ago Spain occupied a purely anecdotal presence in the international context but
today it occupies the eighth position in the world in publication of astronomical articles and
among other successes owns and op- ates ninety per cent of the world's largest optical
telescope GTC (Gran Telescopio Canarias). The Eighth Scienti?c Meeting of the Spanish
Astronomical Society (Sociedad Espanol a de Astronom´ a SEA) held in Santander in July 7-11
2008 whose p- ceedings are in your hands clearly shows the enthusiasm motivation and quality
of the present Spanish astronomical community. The event brought together 322 participants who
represent almost 50% of Spanish professional astronomers. This percentage together with the
continuously increasing with respect to previous SEA meetings number of oral presentations
and poster contributions (179 and 127 respectively) con?rms that the SEA conferences have
become a point of reference to assess the interests and achievements of astrophysical research
in Spain. The most important and current topics of modern Astrophysics were taken into
accountat thepreliminarymeeting aswell as the numberandqualityofparticipants and their
contributions to select the invited speakers and oral contributors. We took a week to enjoy
the high quality contributions submitted by Spanish astronomers to the Scienti?c Organizing
Committee. The selection was dif?cult. We wish to acknowledge the gentle advice and commitment
of the SOC members.
