2002MNRAS.336L..49S

The SuperCOSMOS Sky Surveys provide a complete coverage of the southern sky in three passbands (photographic B_J, R and I) and at different epochs. These data are the basis for a new high proper motion survey that aims to find extremely red nearby dwarf stars and brown dwarfs. One of the first candidates, which is relatively bright (I = 16) but very red R - I = 2.8, B_J- R = 3.6), was detected in the equatorial zone by its large proper motion of 0.56 arcsec.yr. Spectroscopic follow-up observations with the 2.2-m telescope of the Calar Alto Observatory classified this object as an L2 dwarf very similar to the first free-floating L dwarf Kelu 1 also discovered in a proper motion survey by Ruiz, Leggett & Allard. If we assume SSSPM J0829-1309 to have the same luminosity as Kelu 1, we get a distance estimate for the new L dwarf of about 12 pc since it is about one magnitude brighter than Kelu 1 in the SSS I and R bands. This makes SSSPM J0829-1309 one of the nearest objects of its class, well suited for detailed investigations. We present a brief overview of all known nearby (d < 20 pc) southern L dwarfs and give first proper motion values for DENIS-P J0255-47 and SDSSp J1326-00 and an improved proper motion for LHS 102B.