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The sampling strategy of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)make TESS light curves extremely valuable to investigate high cadence opticalvariability of AGN. However, because the TESS instrument was primarily designedfor exoplanet science, the use of the satellite for other applications requirescareful treatment of the data. In this paper we introduce Quaver, a newsoftware tool designed specifically to extract TESS light curves of extendedand faint sources presenting stochastic variability. We then use this new toolto extract light curves of the nearby radio-loud AGN Pictor A, and perform atemporal and power spectral analysis of its high cadence optical variability.The obtained light curves are well fit with a damped random walk (DRW) model,exhibiting both stochastic AGN variations and flaring behavior. The DRWcharacteristic timescales $\tau_{\rm DRW} \sim 3-6$ days during more quietperiods, and $\tau_{\rm DRW} \sim 0.8$ days for periods with strong flares,even when the flares themselves are masked from the DRW fit. The observedtimescales are consistent with the dynamical, orbital and thermal timescalesexpected for the low black hole mass of Pictor A.

The Rapid Optical Variability of the Nearby Radio-Loud AGN Pictor A: Introducing the Quaver Pipeline for AGN Science with TESS