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I. N. Reid (STScI)
The nearest stars provide a statistical snapshot of the Galactic stellar populations and an opportunity for detailed study of individual archetypes. The local census is known to be incomplete, particularly for late-type dwarfs which contribute the majority of the local stellar constituents. Over the last three years, we have been carrying out an extensive survey for those `missing' M and L dwarfs, concentrating on systems likely to be within 20 parsecs. Based primarily on near-infrared data from 2MASS, this project has resulted in the identification and derivation of distance estimates to more nearby stars than any previous survey. One of our prime hunting grounds for `new' M dwarf neighbours is Luyten's NLTT proper motion survey. I will describe our main results from follow-up observations of those targets, and outline a method for finding a (relatively well-defined) subset of the proper motion stars that Luyten missed.
This research is funded by the NASA/NSF NStars program via a SIM preparatory science contract administered by JPL.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.