Anglo–Australian team observes Vela pulsar optically

Astronomers at the Anglo–Australian Telescope have observed flashing optical light from the Vela pulsar, PSR 0833‐45. They detected very faint double pulses, with the same period as the radio pulsar, in measurements with the new 3.9‐meter telescope near Coonabarabran, Australia. With an apparent time‐averaged magnitude of about 25.2, the pulsar is the faintest object ever detected photoelectrically. (The only other pulsar yet detected optically, the Crab, has a magnitude of 17.0.) Among the many faint stars known to be within the region of the pulsar, the observers at the AAT have tentatively identified one as the most likely candidate to be PSR 0833‐45. The participants in the measurements were Pat Wallace, Bruce Peterson, Paul Murdin, John Danziger (all from the Anglo–Australian Observatory, Epping, New South Wales), Richard Manchester, Andrew Lyne, Miller Goss (all from CSIRO Division of Radiophysics, Epping), Graham Smith, Mike Disney, Kent Hartley, Derek Jones and Gordon Wellgate (all from the Royal Greenwich Observatory, UK). This group was the first to use a recently completed determination of the pulsar radio position.