Search for the event horizon by means of optical observations with high temporal resolution

The critical property of the black hole is the presence of the event horizon. It may be detected only by means of the detailed study of the emission features of its surroundings. The temporal resolution of such observations has to be better than ∼ rg/c, and it lies in the 10⁻⁶-10s range depending on the black hole mass. In SAO RAS we have developed the MANIA hardware and software complex based on the panoramic photon counter and use it in observations on 6m telescope for the search and investigation of the optical variability on the time scales of 10⁶-10³ s of various astronomical objects. We present the hardware and methods used for these photometrical, spectroscopic and polarimetrical observations, the principles and criteria of the object selection. The list of the latter includes objects with featureless optical spectra (DC white dwarfs, blazars) and long microlensing events.