Citizen scientists find over 3,000 nearby brown dwarfs

“If we take images sufficiently separated in time (a few years, say) then that motion (called proper motion) can be detected. The two images can be blinked one after another, for example, and the nearby objects will appear to flicker back and forth. Or, one image can be subtracted from the other; stars will more or less disappear, but anything moving enough will be seen as a pair of objects close together, one positive (white) and one negative (black).

That’s a lot of work.

…

the project has found 3,006 “motion-confirmed” brown dwarfs. Three thousand! That literally more than doubles the known number of these objects, a huge score”

https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/citizen-scientists-find-over-3-000-nearby-brown-dwarfs