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Queue scheduling the Alan Cousins Telescope
The Alan Cousins Telescope is a 0.75-m automatic photoelectric telescope situated at the South African Astronomical Observatory, in Sutherland. The telescope was designed and built to execute a range of photometry programmes, but is used mainly for the long-term monitoring of variable stars. In addi...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Electrical Engineering
2020
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| _version_ | 1867613183599968256 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Maartens, Deneys Sean |
| author2 | Martinez, Peter |
| author_browse | Maartens, Deneys Sean Martinez, Peter |
| author_facet | Martinez, Peter Maartens, Deneys Sean |
| author_sort | Maartens, Deneys Sean |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | The Alan Cousins Telescope is a 0.75-m automatic photoelectric telescope situated at the South African Astronomical Observatory, in Sutherland. The telescope was designed and built to execute a range of photometry programmes, but is used mainly for the long-term monitoring of variable stars. In addition, there is the potential for target-of-opportunity observations of unanticipated events, such as gamma ray bursts, and anticipated events such as occultations. Ultimately the telescope is intended to be a fully robotic telescope with limited operational support needs. Some advance toward this goal has been made by a full hardware interface to allow queue executions of observations. The next phase is the implementation of an automated scheduler that will generate a queue of valid observations for each night of observation. Queue scheduling algorithms are widely used in astronomy and the aim of this dissertation is to present a strawman scheduler that will generate the nightly observation queue. The main design of the scheduler is based on a merit-based system implemented at the STELLA robotic observatory, paired with the scheduling algorithms used by SOFIA. The main drawback of the telescope is that it does not currently accommodate dynamically changing weather conditions. As a consequence, the main scheduling constraints are observation parameters, instrument ability, and for monitoring type observations, observation time window constraints. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31460 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:06.010Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publishDateRange | 2020 |
| publishDateSort | 2020 |
| publisher | Department of Electrical Engineering |
| publisherStr | Department of Electrical Engineering |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/31460 Queue scheduling the Alan Cousins Telescope Maartens, Deneys Sean Martinez, Peter Space Studies The Alan Cousins Telescope is a 0.75-m automatic photoelectric telescope situated at the South African Astronomical Observatory, in Sutherland. The telescope was designed and built to execute a range of photometry programmes, but is used mainly for the long-term monitoring of variable stars. In addition, there is the potential for target-of-opportunity observations of unanticipated events, such as gamma ray bursts, and anticipated events such as occultations. Ultimately the telescope is intended to be a fully robotic telescope with limited operational support needs. Some advance toward this goal has been made by a full hardware interface to allow queue executions of observations. The next phase is the implementation of an automated scheduler that will generate a queue of valid observations for each night of observation. Queue scheduling algorithms are widely used in astronomy and the aim of this dissertation is to present a strawman scheduler that will generate the nightly observation queue. The main design of the scheduler is based on a merit-based system implemented at the STELLA robotic observatory, paired with the scheduling algorithms used by SOFIA. The main drawback of the telescope is that it does not currently accommodate dynamically changing weather conditions. As a consequence, the main scheduling constraints are observation parameters, instrument ability, and for monitoring type observations, observation time window constraints. 2020-03-04T07:56:30Z 2020-03-04T07:56:30Z 2019 2020-03-04T07:50:46Z Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31460 eng application/pdf Department of Electrical Engineering Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment |
| spellingShingle | Space Studies Maartens, Deneys Sean Queue scheduling the Alan Cousins Telescope |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Queue scheduling the Alan Cousins Telescope |
| title_full | Queue scheduling the Alan Cousins Telescope |
| title_fullStr | Queue scheduling the Alan Cousins Telescope |
| title_full_unstemmed | Queue scheduling the Alan Cousins Telescope |
| title_short | Queue scheduling the Alan Cousins Telescope |
| title_sort | queue scheduling the alan cousins telescope |
| topic | Space Studies |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/31460 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT maartensdeneyssean queueschedulingthealancousinstelescope |