2018ApJS..237...30M

We carried out multi-color optical monitoring of a sample of 10 blazars from 2005 to 2011. The sample contains 3 LBLs, 2 IBLs, 4 HBLs, and 1 FSRQ. Our monitoring focused on the long-term variability and the sample included nine BL Lac objects and one flat-spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ). A total of 14,799 data points were collected. This is one of the largest optical databases for a sample of 10 blazars. All objects showed significant variability except for OT 546. Because of the low sampling on each single night, only BL Lacertae were observed to have intraday variability on 2006 November 6. Most BL Lac objects showed a bluer-when-brighter (BWB) chromatism, while the FSRQ, 3C 454.3, displayed a redder-when-brighter trend. The BWB color behaviors of most BL Lacs can be at least partly attributed to the trend of increasing variation amplitude with increasing frequency observed in these objects. The average spectral index of LBLs is around 1.5, as expected from the model dominated by synchrotron self-Compton loss. The optical emission of HBL is probably contaminated by the thermal emission from the host galaxies. Correlation analysis did not reveal any time delay between variations at different wavelengths.