  We present results from the PARallaxes of Southern Extremely Cool objects
(PARSEC) program, an observational program begun in April 2007 to determine
parallaxes for 122 L and 28 T southern hemisphere dwarfs using the Wide Field
Imager on the ESO 2.2m telescope. The results presented here include parallaxes
of 10 targets from observations over 18 months and a first version proper
motion catalog. The proper motions were obtained by combining PARSEC
observations astrometrically reduced with respect to the UCAC2 Catalog, and the
2MASS Catalog. The resulting median proper motion precision is 5mas/yr for
195,700 sources. The 140 0.3deg2 fields sample the southern hemisphere in an
unbiased fashion with the exception of the galactic plane due to the small
number of targets in that region. We present preliminary parallaxes with a 4.2
mas median precision for 10 brown dwarfs, 2 of which are within 10pc. These
increase by 20% the present number of L dwarfs with published parallaxes. Of
the 10 targets, 7 have been previously discussed in the literature: two were
thought to be binary but the PARSEC observations show them to be single, one
has been confirmed as a binary companion and another has been found to be part
of a binary system, both of which will make good benchmark systems.
Observations for the PARSEC program will end in early 2011 providing 3-4 years
of coverage for all targets. The main expected outputs are: more than a 100%
increase of the number of L dwarfs with parallaxes; to increment - in
conjuction with published results - to at least 10 the number of objects per
spectral subclass up to L9, and; to put sensible limits on the general binary
fraction of brown dwarfs. We aim to contribute significantly to the
understanding of the faint end of the H-R diagram and of the L/T transition
region.
