Alpha Centauri
Zooming in on the nearest star system to the sun.
Below: Alpha Centauri is at the centre of this panoramic view of the southern Milky Way, with the Southern Cross at right.
Below: An image made at a longer focal length. Alpha Centauri is again at centre, with, at right, Beta Centauri or Hadar.
Click on the image to toggle a rectangle indicating the field of view of the next zoom level below.
Click on the image to toggle a rectangle indicating the field of view of the next zoom level below.
Click on the picture to toggle a negative image of Alpha Centauri's A and B components lost in the glare of this 2,800mm focal length exposure made to record surrounding much fainter field stars.
Below: The AB pair at very high magnification. The separation at the time (2020) was 5.9 arcseconds.
Click here for a video (in the Image Animations section) animating the above imagery.
Below is a two-frame looping animation of the AB pair with B's apparent orbital path shown, showing B's motion between 2011 and 2020. The orbital period is about 80 years.
Below is a detail from the imagery above showing named open star clusters and a vividly red planetary nebula lying to the right of Alpha Centauri in the images above – click on the image to toggle a key.
