The SMARTS Way to Build a Map to the Stars

Details The SMARTS Way to Build a Map to the Stars The SMARTS Way to Build a Map to the Stars

May 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21820402h&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #204.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

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RECONS (Research Consortium On Nearby Stars) began using the CTIO 0.9m telescope in 1999 to carry out an extensive survey of the nearby stars under the auspices of the NOAO Surveys Program. This effort expanded during the SMARTS era from its original astrometric focus to discover new nearby stars via trigonometric parallaxes to include a reconnaissance of the solar neighborhood using photometric and spectroscopic techniques as well.
In this talk, we will highlight the truly long-term science that has only been possible because of the SMARTS Consortium. Up to a decade of astrometric (and photometric) observations of more than 100 of the nearest red and white dwarfs have been made, in an effort to reveal unseen stellar, brown dwarf, and massive planetary companions. What we are finding is that red dwarfs have many stellar companions, but few brown dwarfs or massive planets. We will also highlight statistics that show that red dwarfs really are in charge of the solar neighborhood, and present results on our new photometric effort to identify hundreds more red dwarfs within 25 pc.
Finally, when making careful observations of more than 500 nearby stars, a few pop out as extraordinary targets. Among the most intriguing are a possible neutron star only 30 pc away, a few highly unusual white dwarfs, and a bizarre red dwarf binary in which the components are twins in every measureable way ... except that one is four times brighter than another.
This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation (AST 05-07711 and 09-08402), NASA's Space Interferometry Mission, Georgia State University, and Northern Arizona University.

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