The Nicholas Central Astronomical Observatory in Pulkovo, near Saint-Petersburg, was inaugurated as Russia's principal astronomical institution on 19 (7) August 1839. Construction of the observatory had begun in 1834 following the edict of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I, who had invited as his adviser Professor Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve, the Director of the Dorpat Observatory. Emperor Nicholas I appointed Wilhelm Struve as the Director of the new observatory. With regard to funding, the emperor had given Struve a carte blanche to enable him to order from German telescope makers the best astrometric instruments designed according to Struve's own ideas. Hence Wilhelm Struve is to be considered as the co-founder of Pulkovo Observatory.

The catalogue of about 200000 stars in the zone from equator to southern pole was complied from photographic observations carried out during 1982 – 1969 years in USSR and Bolivia by Pulkovo astrograph (D=23 sm, F=230 sm, working field 4° × 4° ). The plates were measured by Zeiss Ascoreoord measuring mashines in Pulkovo, Tarija, and others observatories. The process of measurement and compilation of catalogue were carried out in Pulkovo by ES–1033 computer. The observations were made with a four–fold overlap of the sky. Reference oatalogue is SRS catalogue (FK5 system). The differencial refraction, differencial aberration and objective distortion were taken into account. The mean accuracy of catalogue FOCAT-S positions is ±0.123″.

The Pulkovo Observatory computing laboratory began its activities in 1956. Originally it was equipped with card-punched machines. An essential work of processing astronomical data was carried out with the help of these machines ([1] and other).

With the development of the computing techniques in the USSR, the laboratory has been equipped with more modern computing devices. At present the Laboratory disposes of the third generation computer ES-1020 of the Ryad type, as well as the second generation computers Minsk-22 and Nairi-K.