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Ten Year Review of Queue Scheduling of the Hobby‐Eberly Telescope

2007; Institute of Physics; Volume: 119; Issue: 855 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/519291

1538-3873

Matthew Shetrone, Mark E. Cornell, James R. Fowler, Niall Gaffney, Benjamin Laws, J. Mader, Cloud Mason, S. C. Odewahn, B. Roman, S. Rostopchin, Donald P. Schneider, James Umbarger, Amy Westfall,

Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena

This paper presents a summary of the first 10 years of operating the Hobby‐Eberly Telescope (HET) in queue mode. The scheduling can be quite complex but has worked effectively for obtaining the most science possible with this uniquely designed telescope. The queue must handle dozens of separate scientific programs, the involvement of a number of institutions with individual Telescope Allocation Committees, as well as engineering and instrument commissioning. We have continuously revised our queue operations as we have learned from experience. The flexibility of the queue and the simultaneous availability of three instruments, along with a staff trained for all aspects of telescope and instrumentation operation, have allowed optimum use to be made of variable weather conditions and have proven to be especially effective at accommodating targets of opportunity and engineering tasks. In this paper, we review the methodology of the HET queue, along with its strengths and weaknesses.