In 1905 the Campos Rodrigues Observatory (CRO) was founded in Lourenço Marques (nowadays Maputo), the capital of Mozambique, by then part of the Portuguese overseas empire. In this paper the inception and early history of the CRO are analysed in the broader context of the interwoven history of the Portuguese and British empires in Africa, and specifically with respect to the scientific relations between Mozambique and South Africa. The equipment, personnel, practices and networks involved in the inception and early development of the CRO are brought into focus in order to illustrate the problems and strategies that shaped the establishment and functioning of this observatory, which was conceived essentially as a symbol of imperial stamina and colonial prowess. It is suggested that by providing a focal point for the development of scientific relations between Mozambique and South Africa, the CRO served both Portuguese ambitions for recognition as an imperial power and the emergence of South African nationalism.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 March 2019.
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#12,740,048
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#4
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Altmetric has tracked 23,003,906 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 44th percentile – i.e., 44% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 490 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.7. This one is in the 24th percentile – i.e., 24% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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