Scheduler software for the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre

摘要

Observational strategy is a critical path in any large survey. The planning of a night requires the knowledgeof the fields observed, the quality of the data already secured, and the ones still to be observed to optimizescientific returns. Finally, field maximum altitude, sky distance/brightness during the night and meteorologicaldata (cloud coverage and seeing) have to be taken into account in order to increase the chance to have a successfulobservation. To support the execution of the J-PAS project at the Observatorio Astrof′ısico de Javalambre (OAJ),we have prepared a scheduler and a sequencer (SCH/SQ) which take into account all the relevant mentionedparameters. The scheduler first selects the fields which can be observed during the night and orders them onthe basis of their "figure of merit". It takes into account the quality and spectral coverage of the existingobservations as well as the possibility to get a good observation during the night. The sequencer takes intoaccount the meteorological variables in order to modify the schedule for the night. During the commissioningof the telescopes at OAJ, we expect to improve our figures of merit and eventually get to a system which canfunction semi-automatically. This paper describes the design of this software.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.