Martin Nicholson (Independent Researcher)

Published in astro.philica.com

Abstract
The new discovery of a common proper-motion companion to the known binary star system MLR 647 means that it is a triple system.

Article body

 The discovery of a new triple star system (MLR 647)

The newly released Third U.S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC3) offers amateur and professional astronomers alike the opportunity to search for previously unreported binary star systems.

An example of what can be extracted from the mass of information available via the Vizier site (http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-source=I/315) is presented in this article.    

MLR 647 (the primary star) is already listed in the Washington Visual Double Star Catalog as having two components at 0.2 arc second separation and at a position angle of 52 degrees when last measured in 1983. The new discovery of a common proper-motion companion at a distance of 26.8 arc seconds means that MLR 647 is at least a triple system.

Acknowledgement 

This discovery made use of UCAC3 results (Zacharias et al. 2009).

Information about this Article
Peer-review ratings (from 1 review, where a score of 100 represents the ‘average’ level):
Originality = 156.25, importance = 225.00, overall quality = 225.00
This Article was published on 20th September, 2009 at 10:51:37 and has been viewed 2835 times.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

The full citation for this Article is: Nicholson, M. (2009). The discovery of a new triple star system (MLR 647). PHILICA.COM Article number 167.