Optical identification and monitoring of high energy gamma-ray sources

Abstract

We will be presenting updated results to our optical survey of the "error boxes" of EGRET unidentified sources at high Galactic latitude. It is our intention to search for potential blazars that may have been missed in the original identification process. We have first searched the error boxes of unidentified sources at |b|>20° for flat spectrum radio sources using NASA Extragalactic Database (NED). For each such radio source found we conducted optical searches for counterparts using the Palomar 60-inch telescope. Many of the radio sources have plausible optical counterparts, and spectroscopy will be conducted at a later date to determine which sources are quasars or active galaxies (AGN's). Though it is plausible that several of these sources are extragalactic, no blazar-like activity has yet been observed.

Files

Additional details