  We report on the optical observations of the gamma-ray pulsar PSR1706-44
performed with the Test Camera of the VLT-UT1 during the telescope Science
Verification programme. With a limiting magnitude of V~ 27.5, these are the
deepest optical observations ever performed for this pulsar, for which,
however, no likely counterpart has been detected. The non-detection of
PSR1706-44 sets an upper limit on its optical luminosity varying from 2 10^28
to 5 10^29 erg/ s, depending on the exact amount of interstellar absorption.
