Multiwavelength Observations of Strong Flares from the TeV Blazar 1ES 1959+650

Following the detection of strong TeV gamma-ray flares from the BL Lac object1ES 1959+650 with the Whipple 10 m Cherenkov telescope on May 16 and 17, 2002,we performed intensive Target of Opportunity (ToO) radio, optical, X-ray andTeV gamma-ray observations from May 18, 2002 to August 14, 2002. Observationswith the X-ray telescope RXTE and the Whipple and HEGRA gamma-ray telescopesrevealed several strong flares, enabling us to sensitively test theX-ray/gamma-ray flux correlation properties. Although the X-ray and gamma-rayfluxes seemed to be correlated in general, we found an ``orphan'' gamma-rayflare that was not accompanied by an X-ray flare. After describing in detailthe radio (UMRAO, VLA), optical (Boltwood, Abastumani), X-ray (RXTE) andgamma-ray (Whipple, HEGRA) light curves and Spectral Energy Distributions(SEDs) we present initial modeling of the SED with a simple SynchrotronSelf-Compton (SSC) model. With the addition of another TeV blazar with goodbroadband data, we consider the set of all TeV blazars to begin to look for aconnection of the jet properties to the properties of the central accretingblack hole thought to drive the jet. Remarkably, the temporal and spectralX-ray and gamma-ray emission characteristics of TeV blazars are very similar,even though the masses estimates of their central black holes differ by up toone order of magnitude.Comment: Accepted for Publication in the ApJ on October 2nd, 200