Line and Continuum Variability in Active Galaxies

Understand

We compared optical spectroscopic and photometric data for 18 AGN galaxies over 2 to 3 epochs, with time intervals of typically 5 to 10 years.

• We used the Multi-Object Double Spectrograph (MODS) at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) and compared the spectra to data taken from the SDSS database and the literature.
• We find variations in the forbidden oxygen lines as well as in the hydrogen recombination lines of these sources.
• For 4 of the sources we find that, within the calibration uncertainties, the variations in continuum and line spectra of the sources are very small.