Optical Observations of Blazars: the Perugia Monitoring

Abstract

In eight years, during the blazar monitoring program performed with the Perugia automatic telescope, we were able to collect about 20000 $BVR_cI_c$ photometric points, contributing to get knowledge on the optical flux history of many sources brighter than magnitude $V=17.0$. This intensive and constant optical monitoring is essential to perform studies and multiwavelength campains about this class of AGN. We illustrate our program and some examples of data and preliminary results.

4 pages, 4 figures, oral contribution for the ''Frascati Workshop 2001: Multifrequency Behaviuor of High Energy Cosmic Sources'', Vulcano, Aeolian Islands, Italy, May 21-26, 2001. To be published in Memorie della Societa' Astronomica Italiana (Journal of the Italian Astronomical Society), 2002