Automatic optical monitoring of 10 blazars

Cattedra di Astrofisica, Università di Perugia, Via A. Pascoli, I-06100 Perugia, Italy

Corresponding author: Send offprint request to: G. Tosti; e-mail: tosti@astrpg.pg.infn.it

Received: 14 September 1995
Accepted: 1 December 1995

Abstract

We report the data for 10 blazars observed in the first phase of a long–term photometric monitoring program of about 30 objects. The observations were carried out with a 0.40–m automatic imaging telescope, recently developed by our group at the Perugia University Observatory. During our period of observation 1215+303 and 1424+240 were at their highest values of magnitude, while 0754+100 and 0829+043 displayed large amplitude flares. We further report optical data of Mrk 501 during the same period in which TeV γ-rays were detected by the Whipple Observatory.