Digital control of a small telescope using an image sensor as an error detector

The tracking errors of a telescope control system can be detected using an image sensor. In the case of small telescopes, the time for detecting errors is as long as the sampling period because of the small aperture of the telescope. Hence, the usual sampled data system model is not adequate for modeling small telescopes. In response, this paper proposes a new discrete-time model for small telescope systems. A discrete-time performance index is also derived for minimizing tracking errors of telescope systems. Using the proposed model and the performance index, we can obtain controllers for minimizing tracking errors in small telescope systems.