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Description
The Seyfert 1 galaxy Zw 229-015 is among the brightest active galaxies being monitored by the Kepler mission. In order to determine the black hole mass in Zw 229-015 from H{beta} reverberation mapping, we have carried out nightly observations with the Kast Spectrograph at the Lick 3m telescope during the dark runs from 2010 June through December, obtaining 54 spectroscopic observations in total. We have also obtained nightly V-band imaging with the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope at Lick Observatory and with the 0.9m telescope at the Brigham Young University West Mountain Observatory over the same period. We detect strong variability in the source, which exhibited more than a factor of two change in broad H{beta} flux. From cross-correlation measurements, we find that the H{beta} light curve has a rest-frame lag of 3.86^+0.69^_-0.90_ days with respect to the V-band continuum variations. We also measure reverberation lags for H{alpha} and H{gamma} and find an upper limit to the H{delta} lag. Combining the H{beta} lag measurement with a broad H{beta} width of {sigma}_line_=1590+/-47km/s measured from the rms variability spectrum, we obtain a virial estimate of M_BH_=1.00^+0.19^_-0.24_x10^7^M_{sun}_ for the black hole in Zw 229-015.
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