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Proxima Centauri

Bluenosebatty

By Bluenosebatty
in The Astro Lounge

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tenbyfifty

tenbyfifty

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just had a quick look on stellarium and the most northerly stars in the constellation of Centaurus seem to just scrape above the horizon in april. as for proxima centauri maybe if u went a fair way south eg the Canaries u could see it from the top of a mountain at the right time of the year - don't think its very bright though

another check on stellarium: most of centaurus is above the horizon in may and june if ur in tenerife

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tenbyfifty

tenbyfifty

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this from wikipedia:

Because of Proxima Centauri's southern declination, it can only be viewed south of latitude 27° N.Red dwarfs such as Proxima Centauri are far too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Even from Alpha Centauri A or B, Proxima would only be seen as a fifth magnitude star. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 11, so a telescope with an aperture of at least 8 cm (3.1 in.) is needed to observe this star even under ideal viewing conditions—under clear, dark skies with Proxima Centauri well above the horizon.

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Bluenosebatty

Bluenosebatty

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crazy thought that - considering its our nearest star after our sun altho a dwarf you would of thought it would of been more visable but then saying that i guess thats the beauty and fasination of how huge the distances and how open the space acyualy is within our galaxy. enjoyed the episode of wonders of the solar system with Brian Cox when he tried to show the distance between us and Proxima Centauri.

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Naemeth

Naemeth

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crazy thought that - considering its our nearest star after our sun altho a dwarf you would of thought it would of been more visable but then saying that i guess thats the beauty and fasination of how huge the distances and how open the space acyualy is within our galaxy. enjoyed the episode of wonders of the solar system with Brian Cox when he tried to show the distance between us and Proxima Centauri.

It at first does seem odd, but you must also remember how much more difficult an object like Mars is to view when compared to Jupiter. Pluto is incredibly difficult - but that's still in our solar system!

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LeeB

LeeB

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I may be wrong but I think Lalande 21185 at 8.29 light yrs from earth is just a tad closer than Sirius. If memory serves me right just to the left of leo minor.but actually in ursa major.

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tenbyfifty

tenbyfifty

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enjoyed the episode of wonders of the solar system with Brian Cox when he tried to show the distance between us and Proxima Centauri.

somebody pointed out that the ratio of the size of stars to the distance between stars is much greater than the ratio of galaxy size

to intergalactic distance .

So the diameters of most stars are measured in millions of km, plus or minus and order of magnitude (ie a power of ten) but the distance between adjacent stars is measured in light years ie many many more times the diameter of the star.

But take our galaxy - 100 thousand light years across & compare it with the distance to the Andromeda galaxy - 2 million light years.

that's a ratio of only 1:20 or to visualise it , take a dinner plate as our galaxy, put another 20 next to it in a row and that's the distance to Andromeda. no real significance to this info I suppose but it just shows that galaxies are quite close relative to their size.

In human terms ofcourse 2 million light years is an obscenely colossal distance.

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Macavity

Macavity

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The denizens of Proxima Centauri will never know England win Test Matches against the Aussies then... :p

I think it's interesting to look at relative sizes in this way though. The distance of the nearest stars is only of order 1000x (do check this!) the diameter of the solar system. The Pioneer probes have already (approx.) covered the latter distance. A LONG way certainly, but gives some hope for (local) interstellar travel... one day (way)? :)

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