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I Originally tracked down Proxima Centauri back in 2016, and had another go at it around mid 2018. I remember that when preparing observing charts for the area, there was conflicting information out there as to which star was actually Proxima centauri and to top it off, some charts showed a few stars which were not actually there. After both observations I remember feeling unsatisfied that I had actually seen Proxima. There was an 11 mag star close to the area but not shown on the charts except for one, an AAVSO chart from May 2018, but that chart showed two other stars (brighter ) which were not there. This last Friday I downloaded a new chart from the AAVSO and set out once again to see if I could Identify it. Once again, the location of Proxima conflicted with that shown on the chart. This time, the AAVSO chart showed Proxima roughly 1 arc minute south east of were I could actually see an 11 something magnitude star, the spot were the 2018 chart showed it to be. There is a disclaimer at the bottom of the Proxima chart which states that due to it's high proper motion the star is no longer at it's charted J 2000 position. So that is the cause of the discrepancy. I was relying on information which is over two decades old now, and in the intervening years proxima's high proper motion has shifted it to were I saw it on Friday night. It's the closest star to us at 4.25 light year's, variable with a mean magnitude of 11.2 V and situated in a dense star field 2.2 degrees south west of it's sibling pair Alpha centauri AB, with an orbital period of 550,000 years and is about 0.2 Ly's from the pair.
As much of a hassle as it was to track down, it was worth it to glimpse the nearest star to earth other than the sun.
Here is a chart I made from a Wikisky image. Proxima's location is roughly were the X is. The circled object is proxima at the time the DSS2 image was taken and looks close to were the AAVSO chart for J2000 shows it.
Equipment used was an 18 inch F4.5 Dob and 12mm ES 92 degree eyepiece and Coma corrector at 191x
Congratulations NGC1365 (Ivan) on winning the TSS Visual Report of the Day for your fine observation of Proxima Centauri!
-Michael Refractors: ES AR152 f/6.5 Achromat on Twilight II, Celestron 102mm XLT f/9.8 on Celestron Heavy Duty Alt Az mount, KOWA 90mm spotting scope Binoculars: Celestron SkyMaster 15x70, Bushnell 10x50 Eyepieces: Various, GSO Superview, 9mm Plossl, Celestron 25mm Plossl Camera: ZWO ASI 120 Naked Eye: Two Eyeballs Latitude: 48.7229° N
Annoying situation, but no more a problem to you, I guess.
And congrats on the VROD!
- Juha
Senior Embedded SW Designer
Telescope: OrionOptics XV12, Mount: CEM120, Tri-pier 360 and alternative dobson mount.
Grab 'n go: Omegon AC 102/660 on AZ-3 mount
Eyepieces: 26 mm Omegon SWAN 70°, 15 mm TV Plössl, 12.5 mm Baader Morpheus, 10 mm TV Delos, 6 mm Baader Classic Ortho, 5 mm TV DeLite, 4 mm and 3 mm TV Radians
Cameras: ZWO ASI 294MM Pro, Omegon veLOX 178C
OAG: TS-Optics TSOAG09, ZWO EFW 7 x 36 mm, ZWO filter sets: LRGB and Ha/OIII/SII
Explore Scientific HR 2" coma corrector, Meade x3 1.25" Barlow, TV PowerMate 4x 2"
Some filters (#80A, ND-96, ND-09, Astronomik UHC)
Laptop: Acer Enduro Urban N3 semi-rugged, Windows 11
LAT 61° 28' 10.9" N, Bortle 5
I don't suffer from insanity. I'm enjoying every minute of it.
Hi Ivan. A suburb report from you on Proxima Centuari. And, conflicting sky charts can sometimes confuse the issue. Thanks for your work involved in zeroing the location in for us Ivan, and congratulations on winning the TSSVROD Award today.
Marshall
Sky-Watcher 90mm f/13.8 Maksutov-Cassegrain on motorized Multimount
Orion Astroview 120ST f/5 Refractor on EQ3 mount
Celestron Comet Catcher 140mm f/3.64 Schmidt-Newtonian on alt-az mount
Celestron Omni XLT150R f/5 Refractor on CG4 mount with dual axis drives.
Orion 180mm f/15 Maksutov-Cassegrain on CG5-GT Goto mount.
Orion XT12i 12" f/4.9 Dobsonian Intelliscope.
Kamakura 7x35 Binoculars and Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 Binoculars. ZWO ASI 120MC camera.
>)))))*>
I have been in the Proxima Centauri hunt for a while now and have given up on getting any help from star maps. I use a 8" LX90ACF, Tele Vue 27mm Panoptic, Audiostar goto and Stallerarium. Stallarium has an option to setup eyepiece views and any rotation of the view by the type of telescope you using, in my case left and right is reversed. So what I will see is more or less this but with a lot more stars visible :
To to the right of proxima is a half circle of stars with a star more or less in its center, Thats my reference and by drawing a line from the center star to the one on the left of the half circle, viewing from its centre, it points to Proxima, about double the radius distance of the half circle away. There are a pair of stars, not visiable on Stallerarium, next to Proxima. I do a manual sync on Rigel Kent and then a goto to Proximas J2000.0 coordinates, I am then quite sure its in the centre of my view and by using the reference stars I can pinpoint it most of the time.
Main Equipment : Tele Vue 27mm Panoptic, 7&13mm Nagler, Big Barlow : 8" Meade LX90ACF with Meade 2.0" Enhanced Diagonal : Camera Fuji XT100
Thanks for all the feedback and comments guys. The scale of the chart for anyone interested is just under half a degree. Thanks Piet Let Roux for sharing your observations and techniques for spotting Proxima.
Well done on that Ivan; nice detective work! So close yet so hard to pick out, And congrats on the VROD, well deserved!
All the best,
Mark
"The Hankmeister" Celestron 8SE, orange tube Vixen made C80, CG4, AZ-EQ5 and SolarQuest mounts.
Too much Towa glass/mirrors.
Solar:
H/A - PST stage 2 mod with a Baader 90mm ERF on a Celestron XLT 102 (thanks Mike!)
Ca-K - W/O 61mm, Antares 1.6 barlow, Baader 3.8 OD and Ca-K filters with a ZWO ASI174mm.
W/L - C80-HD with Baader 5.0 & 3.8 Solar film, Solar Continuum 7.5nm and UV/IR filters with a Canon EOS 550D. Member of the RASC
Thefatkitty wrote: ↑Thu Jun 24, 2021 1:24 am
Well done on that Ivan; nice detective work! So close yet so hard to pick out, And congrats on the VROD, well deserved!
All the best,
Well done indeed that is something I would like to find as well someday.
Astro-Tech AT 152EDT Ioptron GEM 45 Mount AKA FracZilla
Celestron C11 Carbon Fiber CGEM II Mount AKA Cloudzilla
Sky Watcher Mak Cas 180 Ioptron IEQ 30 AKA MoonZilla
AT 92 on IEQ 30 Pro AKA ClusterZilla
Home Made 8 inch Newtonian Reflector on Rocker Box AKA Scopezilla
Celestron 4 1/2 114 mm Newtonian Telescope 910 F/L GT Mount AKA Frankenscope.