MAPCAT: Monitoring AGN with Polarimetry at the Calar Alto Telescopes

 

MAPCAT is a long term monitoring program, conducted at the Calar Alto 2.2m Telescope. MAPCAT was designed to study the evolution of the optical polarimetric properties of a set of 36 gamma-ray bright blazars (see the source list).

 

This program complements an international effort to study the long term multi-spectral range behaviour of such sources, leaded by the Blazar Group at the Boston University, with a time sampling better than 15 days (~1 month in the case of 7mm polarimetric VLBI imaging).

 

List of sources

 

The source list contains finding charts, absolute magnitudes of calibration stars in the field, as well as important instructions for the Calar Alto 2.2m data reduction.

 

 

 

Instructions for Observers

 

The observations are performed in service mode by the Calar Alto staff. Here is the most updated version of the observing instructions.