干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Photometric reverberation mapping is a novel method used to determine the size and geometry of the broad line region (BLR) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) as well as their host galaxy free luminosities. Establishing a tight luminosity - BLR-size relation may allow type-1 AGN to be used as cosmological distance probes. However, the quality of the results is most sensible to dense time sampling and continuity of the photometric lightcurves. This demands an observatory, with optimal environmental conditions, like the "Universitatssternwarte Bochum", located in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The massive amount of observations are controlled robotically, adapting observational schedules of the telescopes to the weather conditions. Here we present one of the first promising results of our studies.