In the Lighting Technology working group, we have several subjects and collections to research. Two members of the group are researching old Strand technology, and particularly the Strand Galaxy Nova lighting console. In this article, we give some interim results from our research. Written by Bastiaan Schoof.

Strand Galaxy console: the research in The Netherlands 

On 4 April 2026, Bastiaan Schoof visited Controllux in the Netherlands. This is a company that is the Dutch distributor of ADB, Robe and a lot of other lighting brands. This company also used to be distributor for Strand for a very long time in the NL, Belgium and Luxembourg. And for a very short time, they were also the European distributor for Strand and Quartzcolor, between Genlite selling Strand and Philips buying it. Parts of Strand in Europe didn’t have an owner at that time, so Controlluxstepped in to help Strand out, becoming the owner of Strand in Europe for a short period of time. 

At this time Enrico Daamen, one of the two bosses of Controllux and associate partner from Canon II, acquired a lot of material from Strand Germany, mainly because the German branch closed. This material included a lot of documentation fromStrand and other sources. All the inventory of the German Strand distributor went to the Netherlands in that time, in addition to the documentation and material Enrico already had because of his Benelux dealership. 

Strand Galaxy at Controllux on the wall

After the German office ceased, Enrico stored most of this material in the Netherlands, and that is the reason we asked him to be an associate partner. He also has a small private collection of Strand and Quartzcolor equipment next to the equipment and documentation that is stored in his company.  

When Chris van Goethem (BE) and Bastiaan Schoof (NL) visited Enrico in September 2025 to ask him if he wanted to join Canon II as associate partner, he also showed his private collection to us, including the documentation. This confirmed that he has a lot of interesting material for our research. 

Strand Galaxy from Rose Bruford Collega at Plasa London  

Galaxy documentation  

For the lighting technology working group from Canon, we were looking into information about the Strand Galaxy console. Bastiaan Schoof joined Nick Hunt (Rose Bruford, UK) in his research of this important lighting control, where a lot of control concepts were first made widely available that are still being used today. This was the reason to visit Enrico again and look into his documentation of Strand. 

He showed a lot of paper files, in boxes and in drawers – but before he showed that, he first showed what he still had left from the Galaxy hardware. The operating part is hanging in the warehouse on the wall. He said he threw away the computers that came with it, “too bulky”. But, he still has the infra-red remote control for the Galaxy. That equipment looked brand new and never used. The remote consists of two receivers and a sender. Next to that, he also has a separate Galaxy floppy drive to save the shows. It has an M->D (Memory to Disc) and a D->M button. Nick recalls that after a long day’s (or night’s) programming, it was easy to confuse the two buttons, and great care was needed to avoid over-writing the Galaxy’s memory with the contents of an old disk. 

After that he showed some of the Galaxy documentation from a filing cabinet. He had files with a lot of manuals (operator’s handbook, user’s handbook), and other documentation of all the Galaxy versions. There were a lot of technical drawings as well, mostly showing in detail the dimensions of the different consoles. 

 

He even showed a kind of written manual from someone in Dutch about how to start and save shows, how to soft patch and “auto mod”. Next to English version, he also had some manuals in German (Systemkurzbeschreibung). 

Also, there were some documents with information about where all the Galaxy consoles were installed. One list was called: Galaxy Installation Reference list” and it is from March 1983. Another list that also said “Company Confidential” showed it is from December 1986. That document also gives the number of channels for every console in that list.  

I took photos of a lot of the manuals, papers and lists – documentation that tells a lot about the Galaxy, Galaxy 2, Galaxy 3 and Galaxy Nova. We definitely have to go back to see some of that in more detail. 

Nijmegen 

We found a user in Nijmegen through the mention of a Galaxy 3 console in an article we found on our Canonbase repository from the Strand magazine Lights! In 1992. There was a photo of this user, and we were able to track him down and make contact all these years later. Enrico later showed the original quotation for the installation of the console in the photo. Often, historical research is about making connections that begin to tell the story of the past. 

We also found the Circus Theatre in the Netherlands bought two Galaxy consoles: 

Siemens photo collection  

Enrico also showed me some boxes labelled ADB Archive, but they also included many photos of Siemens lighting equipment (boards, dimmers, cables, cable runs, and so on) and photos from theatres, stages, neon signs, documents aboutBühnentechnische Tagung in 1977… It consists of about 24 large folders of photos. 

Enrico said he had no relationship with Siemens, so he gave me the five boxes and I took them home. Mostly, the photos are from German theatres from Bremen, München, Salzburg, Berlin, Aachen, Krefeld, Köln, Baden Baden, Karlsruhe, Wupertal, Frankfurt, Darmstadt and so on. But also from Manilla, Madrid, Venice, Utrecht, Vienna, Graz, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Prague, etc. – too many to name them all here. 

All photos are interesting, some are with the technicians, some also with the stage and a set on it (Aida in Cape Town) and some of models of a newly built theatre in Essen, as well as some photos from where Siemens installed neon tubes on the front of a theatre. 

This archive looks like something that needs separate research. The first conclusion is that at that time this manufacturer delivered a system custom made to the fit control room where it was meant for. Also, the manufacturer appears to beresponsible for all the cable runs and installation of it. This looks like something to dive deeper into – there is always something new to explore! 

Most photos are of really good quality, looking like they were made by professional photographers. It is a lot of work to digitalize, but it is worth it. We have asked the Allard Pierson Institute to ask for their advice on digitizing such images. 

Some rough photos of the material can be found here – these are not the finished digital archive, but they give an impression: https://photos.app.goo.gl/nGuw3Kbrs7f76yq17