Using time resolved 2-dimensional aperture photometry we have established that the optical candidate for PSR 1509-58 does not pulse .
Our pulsed upper limits ( m _ { V } = 24.3 and m _ { B } = 25.7 ) put severe constraints on this being the optical counterpart .
Furthermore the colours of the candidate star are consistent with a main sequence star at a distance of 2-4 kpc .
The probability of a chance coincidence with a normal star and the difficulty of explaining the lack of pulsed emission leads us to conclude that this object is an intermediate field star .