Proxima Centauri with IR

[John Hothersall]

SPX350 F12.7, Mintron12V6 (GStar-Ex), Astrodon RGB+IR742nm filters.

Just had to have a quick go at this 5mins in each filter at 2.56sec exposure. Took a while to find this using images from internet as my planetarium did not show this close moving stellar object. As I am from the UK just wanted a quick image for my records while the Moon was up.

Found the IR which I had already in filterwheel from imaging Saturn gave a much stronger Proxima signal and better star colour generally.

Image1-IRGB.
Image2-RGB.

RA 14h 29 37.
Dec -62 40 42.

Proxima is 2.2 degrees from Alpha Centauri a double I imaged with the Flea3 a few nights earlier.

Thanks, John.

[strongmanmike]

Ummm?..so which one is Proxima..? The yellow star left of centre?

The second image is the best to me, looks great

Nice work

Mike

[John Hothersall]

Sorry I forgot to say:confused2: , red/yellow one left of centre.

Its mag is 11.05 absol mag 15.49, temp 3042K, 1.5x Jupiter width, 4.85bn yrs old, mass 12.3% that of the Sun. Red Dwarfs are the commonest stars in the Galaxy apparently.

John.

[renormalised]

Yes, they are....80% of all stars is a red dwarf. When you hear some say that the Sun is an average star, that is a bit of a furphy. In actual fact, the Sun is in the top 4-4.5% of all stars for every physical characteristic pertaining to stars. Most of the bright stars you see in the sky make up less than 0.1% of all stars. Stars like Procyon (F Class stars) make up about 1% and the K class stars make up around 10-15%, G class stars make up about 5-10%.

So, if you take our galaxy and the minimum number of stars believed to populate it (400 billion), that means 320 billion stars are M class stars, 60 billion K class stars, 16 Billion are G class, 3 Billion are F class, about 1 billion are A class and the rest are O and B.

[SkyViking]

Great catch John. I'm planning to image Proxima myself again soon since it'll be be the 1 year anniversary day of my first image of it. I'm trying to track it's movement, and judging from your image I think I can see it has moved slightly compared to my one year old version.
I also noticed a much stronger signal in IR when I imaged it - it's definitely a very red star.

[John Hothersall]

Thanks renormalised for the information as I did think the Sun was the commonest type of star.

Thanks Rolf, your image last year was one of my references with a wider field one off the internet to get my bearings, figured it could not have moved much in less than a year. Great project to get it over several years thats why I got it off centre for that possibility. Wondered if its parallax could be measured with amature equipment 6 months apart as its near 0.75" wobble?

John.

[gregbradley]

A very interesting image and interesting thread.

Greg.

[ballaratdragons]

Another common mistake is the thought that Proxima is right up close to Alpha 1 & 2 Centauri just because Rigal Kentaurus is a triple system :thumbsup:

I have seen people desperately searching for it next to Rigal K and arguing that it should be there!

One quick look on a star map or Cartes du Ciel usually lets them down calmly. ;)


John, terrific images, with nice colours :thumbsup:

[Terry B]

Very good to see images of this star.
I made a little animtion of its proper motion a few years ago. You can see it here
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=46334

[Stevec35]

Interesting stuff John. I've often contemplated having a go at this one myself.

Cheers

Steve