We present the results of first deep optical observations of the field of the old ( \sim 10 ^ { 8 } yr ) , nearby , isolated pulsar J0108 - 1431 , in an attempt to detect its optical counterpart .
The observations were performed using the FORS1 instrument at the focus of the European Southern Observatory Antu Telescope of the VLT .
Observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array ( ATCA ) were made to determine an accurate position for the radio pulsar at the current epoch .
The imaging data , obtained in the V , B , and U passbands reveal no counterpart at the revised radio position down to V \simeq 28 , B \simeq 28.6 and U \simeq 26.4 .
For a distance of 130 pc , estimated from the pulsar ’ s dispersion measure , our constraints on the optical flux put an upper limit of T = 4.5 \times 10 ^ { 4 } K for the surface temperature of the neutron star , assuming a stellar radius R _ { \infty } = 13 km .
Our new radio position allows us to place an upper limit on the pulsar proper motion of 82 mas yr ^ { -1 } which , for d = 130 pc , implies a transverse velocity \lesssim 50 km sec ^ { -1 } .