Speaker
Mr
Bovornpratch Vijarnwannaluk
(Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330 , Thailand)
Description
We report the ongoing variability monitoring program for a well-defined, flux-limited sample of active galactic nuclei (with Bj<18 mag) through a multi-band optical imaging using Thailand's 0.6-m remotely-operated telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile. Our goal is to search for month-time scales outbursts to identify potential targets for spectroscopic follow-up to estimate the broad-line region size through reverberation mapping technique. We have developed a Python pipeline based on the publicly available SWARP or SExtractor to efficiently extract the photometry and produce light-curves in the B,V, and R bands. We typically achieve a consistent photometric uncertainty of < 0.05 mag for targets at 14-15 mag under optimal conditions at an average cadence of two days or better for a number of objects during a 2014 - 2015. Here, we demonstrate the use of our machinery to monitor PG1302-102, which has recently been found to be the first candidate of a binary supermassive blackhole at sub-kpc distance, at accuracy approaching 0.01mag over 14 months.
Primary author
Mr
Bovornpratch Vijarnwannaluk
(Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330 , Thailand)
Co-authors
Dr
Malte Schramm
(Kavli IPMU, University of Tokyo, Kashiwanoha 5-1-5, Kashiwa-shi, Chiba, Japan)
Dr
Wiphu Rujopakarn
(Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330 , Thailand)
