Automatic optical monitoring of 10 blazars

We report the BVR(c)I(c) data for 10 blazars observed in the first phase of a long-term photometric monitoring program of about 30 objects. The observations were carried out with a 0.40-m automatic imaging telescope, recently developed by our group at the Perugia University Observatory. During our period of observation 1215 + 303 and 1424 + 240 were at their highest values of magnitude, while 0754 + 100 and 0829 + 043 displayed large amplitude hares. We further report optical data of Mrk 501 during the same period in which TeV gamma-rays were detected by the Whipple Observatory.