Of the fifteen-nearest star systems, seven — almost half — are double or triple stars. The fifteenth closest star system is Struve 2398, at a distance of 11.49 ly. It consists of two red dwarf stars with magnitudes 8.9 and 9.7. Struve 2398 is in the northern sky in the constellation Draco. The image below shows its location relative to the Little Dipper.
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| Struve 2398 (circled), the 15th closest star system. |
The Little Dipper is on the left side of the frame, with Polaris in the lower-left corner. A Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4 lens with a Hoya Softon filter was used to obtain this image in moonlight on Saturday night.
A Rokinon 135mm f/2 lens provides a closer view:
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| Struve 2398 (circled). Rokinon 135mm f/2. North is up. |
Finally, an Astro-Tech AT80EDT 80mm f/6 telescope was used for an even closer view that shows the two stars separated:
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| Struve 2398. 2x enlargement. |
This image is a stack of three exposures. The two stars are separated by about 12 arcseconds.
On the same evening, even though the moon was up, I used the Leica 25mm lens to capture a shot of Scorpius rising over the southern end of Snowshoe Mountain:
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