Scheduling Algorithm

Once insgen has a list of targets for the current night and calculated the observing windows it first sorts the list using the following criteria:

• rank (10 is better than 0)
• transit time (farther from midnight is better)

Then insgen attempts to schedule each object by trying each step below and stopping when successful.

1. at its BEST window if available
2. the time closest to the BEST window yet within the VISIBLE window
3. pushes the other already scheduled observations to earlier or later times that will remain consistent with their VISIBLE windows and inserts request within its VISBILE window so the sum of the absolute delay times is a minimum

If none of these can be achieved, the object is not scheduled and an entry is made in the Skipped table with the reason given as nospace.