Laurel Brown, Advisor: Dr. Thomas J. Balonek
The quasar 3C 279 is an optically violently variable quasar that has been well studied at multiple
wavelengths. For this project, optical observations of the quasar were taken on every clear night
between January and April; the 16-inch reflecting telescope and CCD camera at Colgate's Foggy
Bottom Observatory were used to observe the object. In order to determine brightness changes,
archival data from 1997-1998 and new data from this emester were reduced using the Image
Reduction and Analysis Facility. Magnitude values for the quasar were plotted from night to
night in order to see brightness variation over time. It was found that although the quasar
brightened near the beginning of this project, it subsequently remained fairly constant in
magnitude and did not achieve brightness levels seen in the past. The variations were entered
into a cross-correlation program that compared this optical data to X-ray data collected by the
Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer telescope. Thsi correlation checks for a relation between the
variablility in the two wavelength regimes.
