grb34.gifGroombridge 34 is one of my old favourites. The attached is an orbit diagram derived from elements for this system... ...south is top, and periastron is marked by a cross, last one is estimated as being at around the year 1745. Note this is the "projected on the night sky" apparent orbit. [The attached GIF is less than a kilobyte, so I'll blatantly ignore any and all widging about attachments] This means that this pair will also change their orientation with respect to each other too, but with a 2600 year estimated orbital period, this probably won't matter for even the oldest archival plates, especially as most surveys probably won't split the pair. There was some debate at one time as to whether GX And was a close [unresolved] binary itself, with the 'C' star being the actual flaring object, but I think this was poo-pooed in the end, with there being no direct proof for a third object... ...there were similar debates about the more well known Groombridge 1860 at one time. Anyway, this physically connected pair of red dwards are both flare stars, and actually look quite nice through the telescope to boot, and are amongst the closest known stellar systems, which in many ways accounts for the high proper motion. Cheers John
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