The team led by professor Mauri Valtonen of Turku University in Finland has weighed the most massive black hole known. Object has mass of 18 billion times the mass of our Sun. It is though six times heavier than previous record. Details of this were presented at the 211th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Austin, Texas. Because of this finding scientists are now able to test Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity in extreme conditions.

Now ongoing long term optical and radio monitoring campaign was started at the end of 2004 and it is planned to continue monitoring until spring 2008. From Taurus Hill Observatory’s Observing Team Veli-Pekka Hentunen and Markku Nissinen have participated in the monitoring campaign. They have made optical magnitude measurements of OJ287 since December 2006 to January 2008. The results from THO have been very well in line with measurements made in other observatories.

Following picture has been taken 1.1.2008 at 22:00 local time at THO. The magnitude of OJ287 was Rmag = 14,07. Picture has been stacked in Maxim DL from six 300 second exposures at R filter. Picture: Veli-Pekka Hentunen and Markku Nissinen, Taurus Hill Observatory.