Since October 2011, the First G-APD Cherenkov Telescope (FACT) is operated successfully on the Canary Island of La Palma. Apart from the proof of principle for the use of G-APDs in Cherenkov telescopes, the major goal of the project is the dedicated long-term monitoring of a small sample of bright TeV blazars. The unique properties of G-APDs permit stable observations also during strong moon light. Thus a superior sampling density is provided on time scales at which the blazar variability amplitudes are expected to be largest, as exemplified by the spectacular variations of Mrk 501 observed in June 2012. While still in commissioning, FACT monitored bright blazars like Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 during the past 1.5 years so far. Preliminary results including the Mrk 501 flare from June 2012 will be presented.
@article{arxiv.1311.0478,
title = {FACT - Long-term Monitoring of Bright TeV-Blazars},
author = {D. Dorner and A. Biland and T. Bretz and J. Buss and S. Einecke and D. Eisenacher and D. Hildebrand and M. L. Knötig and T. Krähenbühl and W. Lustermann and K. Mannheim and K. Meier and D. Neise and A. -K. Overkemping and A. Paravac and F. Pauss and W. Rhode and M. Ribordy and T. Steinbring and F. Temme and J. Thaele and R. Walter and Q. Weitzel and M. Zänglein},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.0478},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures, presented at the 33rd ICRC (2013)