Long-term monitoring of NGC 5548

From this we show that the narrow-line-emitting region has a radius of only 1-3pc and is denser (n_e_~10^5^/cm3) than previously supposed. The [O III] line width is consistent with virial motions at this radius given previous determinations of the black hole mass.

Since the [O III] emission-line flux is usually assumed to be constant and is therefore used to calibrate spectroscopic monitoring data, the variability has ramifications for the long-term secular variations of continuum and emission-line fluxes, though it has no effect on shorter-term reverberation studies. We present corrected optical continuum and broad H{beta} emission-line light curves for the period 1988-2008.