GALAXY was an automated measuring machine for determining accurate positions and brightnesses of stars on photographic plates. The GALAXY Project team, led by Bill Nicholson of the Photographic Astrometry Department, wrote the control software and developed programs to carry out a number of long-term projects, including the measurement of plates from major surveys. The most significant of these involved the measurement of the Second Cape Photographic Survey plates, 5820 plates secured between 1962 and 1972 at the Royal Observatory in Cape Town giving an overlapping coverage of the whole southern sky. GALAXY measurements for this began in 1978 and were completed a decade later.

The huge GALAXY machine was installed in 1972 in the sub-basement of the West Building at RGO Herstmonceux. A Nova mini-computer was added in 1975, with new software for processing the data created by Nicholson and Dorothy Hobden. GALAXY was also used by students from the University of Sussex and visiting astronomers from overseas.

The GALAXY project papers include an equipment book produced by FERRANTI, an operator’s manual, a software manual, and small bundle of correspondence.