AbstractAstronomers have to point their telescopes with extreme high precision to their targets on the sky. The early craftsmen, which built their telescope mounts, were masters in mechanics and developed sophisticated axis mechanisms based on clockwork motors for the hour angle. The situation changed with the growth of the size of the optical telescopes, the upcoming of large radio telescopes, the related transition to elevation over azimuth mounts and the introduction of electrical main axes drives. The new telescopes were equipped with gears of high transmission ratios, and the dynamics of the motor control was limited by mechanical resonances between the rotors of the motors and the mass of the telescope structure. Early layout tools for the controllers were lumped mass models for the telescope structure including gear stiffnesses and inertias of rotors and brakes, with the free rotor and locked rotor frequencies as critical characteristics influencing the servo loop performance. Nowadays, static and dynamic analysis is performed with the help of finite element models, and the axes controllers are optimized with end‐to‐end models. The emergence of large radio telescopes initiated the development of additional compensation methods for environmental influences as temperature and wind on the shape of the reflectors and their pointing to the sky. Additional active elements on the telescope as surface actuators and subreflector positioners, and additional state sensors on the structure allow the identification and compensation of structural deformations. The method is called flexible body control (FBC). The increasing size of the optical telescopes initiated the development of new mirror technologies as thin meniscus or segmented mirrors in sizes not feasible with the passive supported thick meniscus mirrors. These mirrors need active elements as shape actuators, segment positioners, and wavefront and edge sensors. The method is called active optics (AcO). Astronomical observations in the visible are disturbed by atmospheric blur, and the operability is depending of the active compensation of that blur, based on a fast wavefront sensor analyzing an artificial star and an additional fast wavefront corrector. The method is called adaptive optics (AdO). The following text gives an overview on the historic development of telescope control systems from the viewpoint of the telescope mount and its axes control systems, finally culminating in FBC applications. Actual examples are the large millimeter telescope LMT/GTM in Mexico, the advanced technology solar telescope DKIST in Hawaii, and the airborne telescope of SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy with its base in Palmdale, California.