Optical Monitoring of the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 4151 and Possible Periodicities in the Historical Light Curve

TL;DR

This study presents optical photometry of NGC 4151 over several years, constructing a historical light curve from 1910 to 2013, and identifies potential periodicities using multiple analytical methods.

Contribution

It combines new observations with historical data to analyze long-term variability and suggests possible periodicities in the galaxy's light curve.

Findings

Possible periods of 4, 7.5, and 15.9 years identified.

Long-term light curve constructed from 1910 to 2013.

Multiple methods used to analyze periodicity.

Abstract

We report B, V, and R band CCD photometry of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 4151 obtained with the 1.0-m telescope at Weihai Observatory of Shandong University and the 1.56-m telescope at Shanghai Astronomical Observatory from 2005 December to 2013 February. Combining all available data from literature, we have constructed a historical light curve from 1910 to 2013 to study the periodicity of the source using three different methods (the Jurkevich method, the Lomb-Scargle periodogram method and the Discrete Correlation Function method). We find possible periods of P_1=4\pm0.1, P_2=7.5\pm0.3 and P_3=15.9\pm0.3 yr.