A method for attitude control of telescopes making use of an inverted pendulum

We propose an attitude control method of a telescope using an inverted pendulum. A cylindrical telescope tube with a sharp bottom end is put on a motorized XY linear stage. The upper edge of the tube is supported by 4 pressure sensors. When the tube begins to deviate from the vertical, torque arises to try to throw down the tube. Then, the pressure sensors detect the stress and the XY linear stage displaces the bottom of the tube so as to make the stress zero. Sensitivity to the verticality or stress intensity acting on pressure gauges does not depend on the size of the tube but on the mass. This character is advantageous to miniaturization.