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W.C. Jao, T.J. Henry, J.P. Subasavage (Georgia State University), C. Williams (Johns Hopkins Univsersity), RECONS Team
RECONS work on the sample of nearby stars indicates that about 35 percent of stellar systems are missing within 10pc of the Sun. High proper motion stars are among the best targets to investigate to unveil the missing members. Currently, there are 655 stars in 553 systems known with proper motions greater than 1 arcsec/year (hereafter, the MOTION stars). Roughly 22 percent of these systems have no measured trigonometric parallax.
We are carrying out a southern sky parallax survey program known as CTIOPI (CTIO Parallax Investigation), to obtain first parallaxes for MOTION stars currently lacking measurements. The large number of frames acquired during CTIOPI not only permit parallax measurements but are useful for identifying and confirming previously unseen companions. Already, eight new components have been discovered, four of which are new MOTION stars. We also present photometry data for MOTION stars through standard VRI bands using the 0.9m at CTIO and 1.6m at Steward Observatory. These results will provide colors and accurate photometric parallaxes for those MOTION stars without trigonometric parallaxes, and will provide fundamental information about how the sample of MOTION stars is distributed in the solar neighborhood.
The support of the NOAO Surveys Program, CTIO, the NStars Project, NASA's Space Interferometry Mission have been the crucial to the success of this research.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #4
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.