Hipparcos - The Hipparcos Reference Frame

The Hipparcos Reference Frame

The satellite observations essentially yielded highly accurate relative positions of stars with respect to each other, throughout the measurement period (1989–93). In the absence of direct observations of extragalactic sources (apart from marginal observations of quasar 3C273) the resulting rigid reference frame was transformed to an inertial frame of reference linked to extragalactic sources. This allows surveys at different wavelengths to be directly correlated with the Hipparcos stars, and ensures that the catalogue proper motions are, as far as possible, kinematically non-rotating. The determination of the relevant three solid-body rotation angles, and the three time-dependent rotation rates, was conducted and completed in advance of the catalogue publication. This resulted in an accurate but indirect link to an inertial, extragalactic, reference frame.

A variety of methods to establish this reference frame link before catalogue publication were included and appropriately weighted: interferometric observations of radio stars by VLBI networks, MERLIN and VLA; observations of quasars relative to Hipparcos stars using CCDs, photographic plates, and the Hubble Space Telescope; photographic programmes to determine stellar proper motions with respect to extragalactic objects (Bonn, Kiev, Lick, Potsdam, Yale/San Juan); and comparison of Earth rotation parameters obtained by VLBI and by ground-based optical observations of Hipparcos stars. Although very different in terms of instruments, observational methods and objects involved, the various techniques generally agreed to within 10 milliarc-sec in the orientation and 1 milliarc-sec/yr in the rotation of the system. From appropriate weighting, the coordinate axes defined by the published catalogue are believed to be aligned with the extragalactic radio frame to within ±0.6 milliarc-sec at the epoch J1991.25, and non-rotating with respect to distant extragalactic objects to within ±0.25 milliarc-sec/yr.

The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues were then constructed such that the Hipparcos reference frame coincides, to within observational uncertainties, with the International Celestial Reference System (the ICRS), and representing the best estimates at the time of the catalogue completion (in 1996). The resulting Hipparcos reference frame is thus the materialisation of the ICRS in the optical. It extends and improves the J2000(FK5) system, retaining approximately the global orientation of that system but without its regional errors.