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arXiv · astro-ph/0106222

Search for nearby stars among proper motion stars selected by optical-to-infrared photometry. I. Discovery of LHS 2090 at spectroscopic distance of d=6pc

Abstract

We present the discovery of a previously unknown very nearby star - LHS 2090 at a distance of only d=6 pc. In order to find nearby (i.e. d < 25 pc) red dwarfs, we re-identified high proper motion stars ($μ>$ 0.18 arcsec/yr) from the NLTT catalogue (Luyten \cite{luyten7980}) in optical Digitized Sky Survey data for two different epochs and in the 2MASS data base. Only proper motion stars with large $R-K_s$ colour index and with relatively bright infrared magnitudes ($K_s<10$) were selected for follow-up spectroscopy. The low-resolution spectrum of LHS 2090 and its large proper motion (0.79 arcsec/yr) classify this star as an M6.5 dwarf. The resulting spectroscopic distance estimate from comparing the infrared $JHK_s$ magnitudes of LHS 2090 with absolute magnitudes of M6.5 dwarfs is $6.0\pm1.1$ pc assuming an uncertainty in absolute magnitude of $\pm$0.4 mag.

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R. -D. Scholz, H. Meusinger, H. Jahreiß. 2001-06-13. Search for nearby stars among proper motion stars selected by optical-to-infrared photometry. I. Discovery of LHS 2090 at spectroscopic distance of d=6pc. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361%3A20010811

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