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Pulsed and unpulsed light from the Vela and Crab pulsars

Abstract

OBSERVATIONS of the Vela and Crab pulsars were made with the Image Photon Counting System1 (IPCS) at the ƒ/15 focus of the 3.9 m Anglo–Australian Telescope (AAT), on 9 and 10 March 1978. Observations of the unpulsed light from the Crab pulsar have been obtained with an electronographic camera5 used with the 0.9 m Yapp reflector of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO). We obtained phase-resolved pictures of the Vela pulsar2,3, positively identifying it with the faint, blue candidate star4 and detecting a relatively strong, unpulsed light component. We also detected a weak unpulsed component from the Crab pulsar.

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PETERSON, B., MURDIN, P., WALLACE, P. et al. Pulsed and unpulsed light from the Vela and Crab pulsars. Nature 276, 475–478 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/276475a0

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