Southern infrared proper motion survey: I. Discovery of new high proper motion stars from first full hemisphere scan

We present the first results from the Southern Infrared Proper Motion Survey. Using 2 Micron All Sky Survey data along with that of the SuperCOSMOS sky survey we have been able to produce the first widefield infrared proper motion survey. Having targeted the survey to identify nearby M, L and T dwarfs we have discovered 70 such new objects with proper motions greater than 0.5″/yr with 10 of these having proper motions in excess of 1″/yr. The most interesting of these objects is SIPS 1259-4336 a late M dwarf. We have calculated a trigonometric parallax for this object of π = 276±41 milliarcsec yielding a distance of 3.62 ± 0.54 pc. We have also discovered a common proper motion triple system and an object with a common proper motion with LHS 128. The survey completeness is limited by the small epoch differences between many 2MASS and UKI observations. Hence we only recover 22% of Luyten objects with favourable photometry. However the Luyten study is itself unquantifiably incomplete. We discuss the prospect of enhancing the survey volume by reducing the lower proper motion limit.