Could a probe return data by semaphore? Wave a flag that blocks the light of Alpha Centauri as seen from a telescope off to the side of the sun, say at the distance of Neptune's orbit. It should be possible to hide Alpha Centauri behind a relatively small semaphore until the probe gets fairly close.
Neat idea, but it looks like the math doesn't really work out: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/66295/is-interstel...
Though it looks like these folks are thinking about blocking from near the star, which requires megastructures for anything detectable. I haven't done even back of the envelope calculations but I'd guess the limiting factor is you'd only be causing an eclipse/transit in an unusably narrow angle directly behind the craft. As you get closer the cone expands but the signal weakens.