Session CB - Field Theory; Astronomy and Astrophysics; Life on Mars.
MIXED session, Friday morning, November 15
Henry Oliver F, Holiday Inn
The EGRET blazar, PKS 1633+38, was monitored during April, 1996 with the 42-inch telescope equipped with the NSF CCD camera at Lowell Observatory in order to study the time scales of the optical variability. Variations with an amplitude of nearly a magnitude were found on timescales of a month. Day-to-day variations of 0.1-0.2 mag were detected, with variations of a comparable amplitude detected on timescales as short as a few hours. These variations place severe limits on the size of the emitting region, and provide some constraints for the physical processes responsible for these variations.