<  
Home   /  
Astronomy   /  
Interesting stars   /  
Proper motion   /  
Barnard's Star
>  

Barnard's Star

Barnard's star is the fastest moving (largest proper motion) star known today. It is the best example that 'fixed stars' are not fixed. The movement of Barnard's star in 3 years (2000-2003) is already obvious:

2003/9/16
2003/9/16
2000/8
2000/8
1950-57?
1950-57?

The left image is a photo of Barnard's star taken with the Jaegers f5 5" wide field refractor piggy backed on the Manka Memorial Telescope of AAAP and a Nikon coolpix 995 camera (18mm eyepiece/adapter, 8 seconds, F2.6, ISO 800) on 2003/9/16. The center one is a sketch with an 8"/f6 reflector in August 2000. The right image is from the STScI Digitized Sky Survey, POSS-1, 1950-57, obtained from the STScI survey .

Below is a photo with a larger field. It is taken on 2003/9/16 too. The star 66 Ophiuchi is at lower left; the stars at upper right form a big arrow '<'. Some much fainter stars down below form a small arrow '<' too. Between the two arrows is Barnard's star, moving towards the big arrow.

Finder chart for Barnard's star.
Finder chart for Barnard's star.
link: Jack Schmidling's Barnard's Star page

<  
Home   /  
Astronomy   /  
Interesting stars   /  
Proper motion   /  
Barnard's Star
>  

Google
Tip: to search within my pages only, keep inurl:zhuxj in your query. For example, inurl:zhuxj venus transit.

All images by Jerry Xiaojin Zhu unless noted otherwise. Feel free to use them for your personal enjoyment. For other usage please contact the author at jerryzhu@gmail.com