- Barth, Aaron J;
- Nguyen, My L;
- Malkan, Matthew A;
- Filippenko, Alexei V;
- Li, Weidong;
- Gorjian, Varoujan;
- Joner, Michael D;
- Bennert, Vardha Nicola;
- Botyanszki, Janos;
- Cenko, S Bradley;
- Childress, Michael;
- Choi, Jieun;
- Comerford, Julia M;
- Cucciara, Antonino;
- da Silva, Robert;
- Duchêne, Gaspard;
- Fumagalli, Michele;
- Ganeshalingam, Mohan;
- Gates, Elinor L;
- Gerke, Brian F;
- Griffith, Christopher V;
- Harris, Chelsea;
- Hintz, Eric G;
- Hsiao, Eric;
- Kandrashoff, Michael T;
- Keel, William C;
- Kirkman, David;
- Kleiser, Io KW;
- Laney, C David;
- Lee, Jeffrey;
- Lopez, Liliana;
- Lowe, Thomas B;
- Moody, J Ward;
- Morton, Alekzandir;
- Nierenberg, AM;
- Nugent, Peter;
- Pancoast, Anna;
- Rex, Jacob;
- Rich, R Michael;
- Silverman, Jeffrey M;
- Smith, Graeme H;
- Sonnenfeld, Alessandro;
- Suzuki, Nao;
- Tytler, David;
- Walsh, Jonelle L;
- Woo, Jong-Hak;
- Yang, Yizhe;
- Zeisse, Carl
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 Hβ reverberation mapping, we have carried out nightly observations with the Kast Spectrograph at the Lick 3 m 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 0.9 m 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 Hβ flux. From cross-correlation measurements, we find that the Hβ 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 Hα and Hγ and find an upper limit to the Hδ lag. Combining the Hβ lag measurement with a broad Hβ width of σline = 1590 ± 47 km s-1 measured from the rms variability spectrum, we obtain a virial estimate of M BH = 1.00+0.19-0.24 × 107 M⊙ for the black hole in Zw 229-015. As a Kepler target, Zw 229-015 will eventually have one of the highest-quality optical light curves ever measured for any active galaxy, and the black hole mass determined from reverberation mapping will serve as a benchmark for testing relationships between black hole mass and continuum variability characteristics in active galactic nuclei. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.