%0 Journal Article %A Antoranz Canales, Pedro %A Barrio Uña, Juan Abel %A Contreras González, José Luis %A Fonseca González, María Victoria %A López Moya, Marcos %A Miranda Pantoja, José Miguel %T Observation of very high energy gamma-ray emission from the active galactic nucleus 1ES 1959+650 using the MAGIC telescope %D 2006 %@ 0004-637X %U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/50935 %X The MAGIC Cerenkov telescope has observed very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission from the active galactic nucleus 1ES 1959+650 during 6 hr in 2004 September and October. The observations were carried out alternating with observations of the Crab Nebula, whose data were used as a reference source for optimizing gamma -ray/hadron separation and for flux comparison. The data analysis shows VHE gamma-ray emission of 1ES 1959+650 with similar to 8 sigma significance, at a time of low activity in both optical and X-ray wavelengths. An integral flux above similar to 180 GeV of about 20% that of the Crab Nebula was obtained. The light curve, sampled over 7 days, shows no significant variations. The differential energy spectrum between 180 GeV and 2 TeV can be fitted with a power-law of index -2.72 +/- 0.14. The spectrum is consistent with the slightly steeper spectrum seen by HEGRA at higher energies, also during periods of low X-ray activity. %~