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Black Widow pulsar, erdmanpe

Black Widow pulsar

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Black Widow pulsar, erdmanpe

Black Widow pulsar

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Description

These are small subframes around the pulsar PSR J2339-0533. I've identified the pulsar in the first frame where it is visible at about magnitude 18. Two hours later, its cool orbiting companion star eclipses it in the second frame, dropping the optical emission by ~3 magnitudes causing it to disappear into the sky noise in my image.

The orbital period is only about 4.6 hours, so I was able to catch the beginning of the dimming phase, minimum (disappearance to me), growing to maximum and then disappearance again in a single evening on Oct. 5, 2013. Each frame was a 15 minute exposure. These are each single frames, simply dark subtracted and debloomed in Maxim. I just took exposures continuously to map out the light curve.

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Black Widow pulsar, erdmanpe