Introduction
High-altitude balloon payloads are frequently used as a low-cost alternative to satellites to fly optical telescopes or other narrow-field instruments to study the sky. As balloons are moving, potentially unstable platforms, besides tracking the desired coordinates, a control system and mounting hardware to control a telescope need to be able to compensate for the movement of the balloon payload. While professional organizations such as NASA have accomplished this task, few platforms available to students have a control system capable of allowing effective usage of optical instruments on-board of a balloon.
Goals
To develop a telescope mount control system. Specifically, the High-Altitude Student Payload (HASP), wishes to have a control system that is able to compensate for the motion of a 2-ton balloon gondola suspended below a zero-pressure balloon for the duration of several days with the telescope having an orientation of accuracy of one arc-minute.