Caption: The nearest stars.

"A spatial representation of every star within 14 light-years of Sol. There are 32 known stars in this region, including Sol. The stars are coloured according to the spectral type, which may NOT reflect the actual colour. Please see this Wikipedia article for the listing of stars. If a star is double or triple the stars are shown stacked vertically: the actual position is the star closest to the centre plane. The stars on this map may NOT all be visible to the naked eye, as many are dwarf stars. Some of this information may be preliminary and NOT entirely accurate as a result. The coordinate system is right ascension and declination. Hours of RA are marked, as well as distance in multiples of 5 light-years."

The blue plane is the plane of the celestial equator.

Sirius (the Dog star) in Canis Major is the only really well known member of this crowd.

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky and is to the south-east of Orion---so anyone can find it.

Table of Nearest Stars

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Name         Parallax       Distance    Spectral Type     Mass     Luminosity
             (arcseconds)   (parsecs)   /Luminosity Class (M_Sun)  (L_Sun)
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Sun                         1/206265    G2 V                1        1
Proxima Cen      0.772      1.30        M5.5 V              0.107    8.2*10**-4
Alpha Cen A      0.747      1.34        G2 V                1.144    1.77
Alpha Cen B      0.747      1.34        K0 V                0.916    0.55
Barnard's star   0.547      1.83        M4.0 V              0.166    3.6*10**-3
Wolf 359         0.419      2.39        M6.0 V              0.092    3.5*10**-4
Lalande 21185    0.393      2.54        M2.0 V              0.464    0.023
*
*
Sirius A         0.380      2.63        A1 V                1.991   26.1 
Sirius B         0.380      2.63        white dwarf         0.500    2.4*10**-3
*
*
Procyon A        0.286      3.50        F5 IV-V             1.569    7.73
Procyon B        0.286      3.50        white dwarf         0.500    5.5*10**-4
61 Cyni A        0.286      3.50        K5.0 V              0.703    0.16
61 Cyni b        0.286      3.50        K7.0 V              0.630    0.095
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References: FK-A-6 for everything, except the luminosities; CK-A-4 for the luminosities.

Note 1: The asterisks indicate omissions of rather obscure little stars.

Note 2: The closest stars are often intrinsically quite dim and the overlap between the table for nearest stars and that for brightest stars is NOT strong: see Table of Brightest Stars as Seen from Earth.

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