[Aavso-photometry] Campaign update: Blazar monitoring for VERITAS/XMM

[Matthew Templeton]

Hello everyone,

It has been a busy few weeks at AAVSO, both for campaigns and unexpected 
events.  Thanks to everyone for all the observations coming in campaign 
related or not.

I received a short update from Markus Boettcher at the University of Ohio 
regarding the ongoing campaign to observe blazars in support of VERITAS 
observations.  Those of you following the campaign probably noticed that
the blazar 3C 66A was very active during late summer and into september. 
Although this was mostly during the annual monsoon downtime for VERITAS, 
observations were obtained in September following the resumption of 
regular observing.  According to Dr. Boettcher,

"...the optical monitoring of all of our 10 XMM (and Chandra)
ToO targets is in full swing by our VERITAS affiliated
optical observers and the AAVSO. As you are aware, this
has already led to the optical trigger on 3C66A, which
has not yielded a significant detection with VERITAS.
Consequently, no X-ray observations were triggered. The
WEBT campaign on 3C66A that I initiated in response to
its optical high state in September is still going on,
but the flux has now gone down substantially below the
trigger threshold for further VERITAS observations.
Therefore, the WEBT campaign will be terminated in
about a week, unless renewed flaring is observed. "

So it appears that the current active state of 3C 66A has come to an end. 
However, there are several more blazars in the list -- some bright, some 
very faint -- and all of them may yield interesting results.  And of 
course, 3C 66A may become active again soon.

More information about this campaign may be found in Alert Notice 353:

http://www.aavso.org/publications/alerts/alert353.shtml


All of the current and recently completed campaigns are shown together on 
the "Observing Campaigns" web page:

http://www.aavso.org/news/campaigns.shtml


Thanks to all who've participated in AAVSO observing campaigns this year. 
Great work, everyone!

Clear skies,

 	Matthew Templeton
 	AAVSO