Description
Observations of 226 AGNs in the near-infrared J, H, and K' bands are presented along with the analysis of the observations for variability. Our sample consists mainly of Seyfert 1 AGNs and QSOs. About a quarter of the objects in each category are radio loud. The AGNs in the entire sample have the redshifts spanning the range from z=0 to 1, and the absolute magnitudes from M_B_=-29 to -18. All the objects were observed twice, and their variability was measured by differential photometry. A reduction method of differential photometry, optimized to the analysis of extended images, has been developed. The systematic error in variability arising from AGNs of highly extended images is estimated to be less than 0.01mag in each of the J, H, and K' bands. The systematic error arising from the flat-fielding is negligible for most AGNs, although it is more than 0.1mag for some particular cases. The overall average flat-fielding error is 0.03mag for the image pairs. We find that these systematic errors are superseded by statistical errors, and the overall average total systematic and statistical errors amounts to 0.05mag in the measured variability in each band.
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