Scheduler software for the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre
Observational strategy is a critical path in any large survey. The
planning of a night requires the knowledge of the fields observed, the
quality of the data already secured, and the ones still to be observed
to optimize scientific returns. Finally, field maximum altitude, sky
distance/brightness during the night and meteorological data (cloud
coverage and seeing) have to be taken into account in order to increase
the chance to have a successful observation. To support the execution of
the J-PAS project at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre
(OAJ), we have prepared a scheduler and a sequencer (SCH/SQ) which take
into account all the relevant mentioned parameters. The scheduler first
selects the fields which can be observed during the night and orders
them on the basis of their "figure of merit". It takes into account the
quality and spectral coverage of the existing observations as well as
the possibility to get a good observation during the night. The
sequencer takes into account the meteorological variables in order to
modify the schedule for the night. During the commissioning of the
telescopes at OAJ, we expect to improve our figures of merit and
eventually get to a system which can function semi-automatically. This
paper describes the design of this software.