Optical photometry of the PSR B0656+14 and its neighborhood

We present the results of broad-band photometry of the nearby middle-aged r adio pulsar PSR B0656+14 and its neighborhood obtained with the 6-meter tel escope of the SAO RAS and with the Hubble Space Telescope. The broad-band s pectral flux F-v of the pulsar decreases with increasing frequency in the n ear-IR range and increases with frequency in the near-UV range. The increas e towards UV can be naturally interpreted as the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of the soft thermal component of the X-ray spectrum emitted from the surface of t he cooling neutron star. Continuation of the power-law component, which dom inates in the high-energy tail of the X-ray spectrum, to the IR-optical-UV frequencies is consistent with the observed fluxes. This suggests that non- thermal pulsar radiation may be of the same origin in a broad frequency ran ge from IR to hard X-rays. We also studied 4 objects detected within 5" fro m the pulsar.