We present the result of astrometric observations of the radio pulsar PSR B0656+14, made using the Very Long Baseline Array. The parallax of the pulsar is π = 3.47 ± 0.36 milliarcsec, yielding a distance 288 pc. This independent distance estimate has been used to constrain existing models of thermal X-ray emission from the neutron star's photosphere. Simple blackbody fits to the X-ray data formally yield a neutron star radius R ∞ ~ 7-8.5 km. With more realistic fits to a magnetized hydrogen atmosphere, any radius between ~13 and ~20 km is allowed.
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Brisken et al. (2003) studied this question.
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