Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T08:17:49.237Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Observation Scheduling for a Network of Small-Aperture Telescopes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2013

A. R. Duncan*
Affiliation:
Mt Kent Observatory, Faculty of Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba QLD 4350, Australia Automated Patrol Telescopes Australia, Pty Ltd., Brisbane QLD 4001, Australia, Email: roy@apta.net.au
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Over the past several years, a system for accepting, servicing and returning the results from a large number of imaging requests has been developed for use with automated optical telescopes. One of the primary goals of this project is to increase the accessibility of astronomy to school, college and university students. A key component of this system is a request scheduling engine, which produces schedules for each telescope for its current night. This engine is dynamic, adjusting schedules to accommodate new requests and rescheduling failed requests on a time scale of the order of ten minutes. If a telescope is unavailable for an extended period, imaging requests will be reallocated to other telescopes in the network. Various models of dynamic scheduling are considered, and the current implementation is explored with a number of numerical experiments.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 2007

References

Adelman, S. J., Dukes, R. J. & Adelman, C. J., 1992, ASP Conf. Ser. 28, Automated Telescopes for Photometry and Imaging (San Francisco: ASP)Google Scholar
Allen, J. R., 1999, ‘Driving by the Rear-View Mirror: Managing a Network with Cricket’, in Proceedings of the First Conference on Network Administration (Santa Clara: Advanced Computing Systems Association), http://www.usenix.org/events/neta99/allen.html Google Scholar
Barták, R., 1999, in Proceedings of Week of Doctoral Students (WDS99), Part IV (Prague: MatFyzPress), 555 Google Scholar
Barták, R., 2002, Neural Network World (Prague: Institute of Computer Science), 12(5), 421 Google Scholar
Denny, R., 2005, ACP Observatory Control Software, http://acp.dc3.com/i Google Scholar
Denny, R., 2004, in Proceedings of the 23rd IAPPP Western Wing Conference: Symposium on Telescope Science (California: IAPPP Western Wing, Inc.), in pressGoogle Scholar
Dierks, T. & Allen, C., 1999, The TLS Protocol Version 1.0, RFC 2246, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2246.txt Google Scholar
Drummond, M., Bresina, J., Edgington, W., Swanson, K., Henry, G. & Drascher, E., 1995, in ASP Conf. Ser. 79, Robotic Telescopes: Current Capabilities, Present Developments, and Future Prospects for Automated Astronomy, Eds. Henry, G. W. & Eaton, J. A. (San Francisco: ASP), 101 Google Scholar
Edgington, W., Drummond, M., Bresina, J., Henry, G. & Drascher, E., 1996, in ASP Conf. Ser. 87, New Observing Modes for the Next Century, Eds. Boroson, T., Davies, J. & Robson, I. (San Francisco: ASP), 151 Google Scholar
Fielding, R. et al., 1999, Hypertext Transfer Protocol – HTTP/1.1, RFC 2616, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Filippenko, A. V., 1992, ASP Conf. Ser. 34, Robotic Telescopes in the 1990s (San Francisco: ASP)Google Scholar
Henry, G. W. & Eaton, J. A., 1995, ASP Conf. Ser. 79, Robotic Telescopes: Current Capabilities, Present Developments, and Future Prospects for Automated Astronomy (San Francisco: ASP)Google Scholar
Hessman, F. V., 2004, Remote Telescope Markup Language 3.0, http://alpha.uni-sw.gwdg.de/~hessman/RTML/ Google Scholar
Oswalt, T. D., 2003, The Future of Small Telescopes in the New Millennium (Dordrecht: Kluwer)Google Scholar
Pennypacker, C. et al., 2002, A&A, 395, 727 doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20021318Google Scholar
Pennypacker, C. et al., 2003, in The Future of Small Telescopes in the New Millennium. Volume I – Perceptions, Productivities, and Policies, Ed. Oswalt, T. D. (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 97 Google Scholar
Pittarelli, M., 1996, SIGART Bulletin Special Issue on Anytime Algorithms and Deliberation Scheduling (New York: ACP), 7(2)Google Scholar
Richmond, M. W., Treffers, R. R. & Filippenko, A. V., 1993, PASP, 105, 1164 doi:10.1086/133294CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaerf, A., 1999, Artificial Intelligence Review (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 13, 87 Google Scholar
Schmidt, G. & Strohlein, T., 1980, The Computer Journal (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 23(4), 307 doi:10.1093/COMJNL/23.4.307CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinnott, R. W., 1988, NGC 2000.0, The Complete New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters (Cambridge: Sky Publishing Corporation and Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Steele, I. A. & Carter, D., 1997, Proc. SPIE 3112, Telescope Control Systems II, Ed. Lewis, H. (Washington: Bellingham), 222 Google Scholar