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Time-Resolved Optical Observations of PSR 1509-58

A. Shearer, C. M. M. O' Sullivan, A. Golden, P. V. R. Garcia, M. Redfern, A. Danks, M. Cullum

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/9803107

Abstract

Using time resolved 2-dimensional aperture photometry we have established that the optical candidate for PSR 1509-58 does not pulse. Our pulsed upper limits (mV = 24.3 and mB = 25.7) put severe constraints on this being the optical counterpart. Furthermore the colours of the candidate star are consistent with a main sequence star at a distance of 2-4 kpc. The probability of a chance coincidence with a normal star and the difficulty of explaining the lack of pulsed emission leads us to conclude that this object is an intermediate field star.

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