Andy Shearer, NUI Galway
"Pulsars, Supernova Remnants and Extremely Large Telescopes"
Optical observations of pulsars have been restricted to a small handful of objects which are probably not representative of the pulsar population. The main problem is that pulsars are optically faint with short radiative lives. The talk will review current Irish research in pulsars. What is needed to progress optical studies are very large telescopes and more efficient optical detectors. The talk will conclude with a discussion of the implications for pulsar astronomy with the proposed ESO/EU 42 m optical telescope due to be commissioned 2017. This system should increase the number of optically emitting pulsars from five to about fifty and be able to survey the local group of galaxies for pulsars and young supernova remnants.
| Last Revised: 2007 January 31st |
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