Issue |
A&A
Volume 595, November 2016
Gaia Data Release 1
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A5 | |
Number of page(s) | 16 | |
Section | Catalogs and data | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201629534 | |
Published online | 24 November 2016 |
Gaia Data Release 1
Reference frame and optical properties of ICRF sources
1 Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, CS 34229, 06304 Nice Cedex, France
2 Lohrmann-Observatorium, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
3 Lund Observatory, Department of Astronomy and Theoretical Physics, Lund University, PO Box 43, 22100, Lund, Sweden
4 Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstraße 14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
5 HE Space Operations BV for ESA/ESAC, Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
6 ESA, European Space Astronomy Centre, Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
7 Vitrociset Belgium for ESA/ESAC, Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
8 Telespazio Vega UK Ltd for ESA/ESAC, Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
9 NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, California Institute of Technology, Mail Code 100-22, 770 South Wilson Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
10 Observatoire Astronomique de l’Université de Genève, Sauverny, Chemin des Maillettes 51, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
11 Aurora Technology for ESA/ESAC, Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
12 The Server Labs S.L. for ESA/ESAC, Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
13 GEA-Observatorio National/MCT, Rua Gal. Jose Cristino 77, CEP 20921-400, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
14 Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, Université de Bordeaux, CNRS, B18N, Allée Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 33615 Pessac, France
⋆
Corresponding author: F. Mignard, e-mail: francois.mignard@oca.eu
Received: 16 August 2016
Accepted: 20 September 2016
Context. As part of the data processing for Gaia Data Release 1 (Gaia DR1) a special astrometric solution was computed, the so-called auxiliary quasar solution. This gives positions for selected extragalactic objects, including radio sources in the second realisation of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF2) that have optical counterparts bright enough to be observed with Gaia. A subset of these positions was used to align the positional reference frame of Gaia DR1 with the ICRF2. Although the auxiliary quasar solution was important for internal validation and calibration purposes, the resulting positions are in general not published in Gaia DR1.
Aims. We describe the properties of the Gaia auxiliary quasar solution for a subset of sources matched to ICRF2, and compare their optical and radio positions at the sub-mas level.
Methods. Descriptive statistics are used to characterise the optical data for the ICRF sources and the optical-radio differences. The most discrepant cases are examined using online resources to find possible alternative explanations than a physical optical-radio offset of the quasars.
Results. In the auxiliary quasar solution 2191 sources have good optical positions matched to ICRF2 sources with high probability. Their formal standard errors are better than 0.76 milliarcsec (mas) for 50% of the sources and better than 3.35 mas for 90%. Optical magnitudes are obtained in Gaia’s unfiltered photometric G band. The Gaia results for these sources are given as a separate table in Gaia DR1. The comparison with the radio positions of the defining sources shows no systematic differences larger than a few tenths of a mas. The fraction of questionable solutions, not readily accounted for by the statistics, is less than 6%. Normalised differences have extended tails requiring case-by-case investigations for around 100 sources, but we have not seen any difference indisputably linked to an optical-radio offset in the sources.
Conclusions. With less than a quarter of the data expected from the nominal mission it has been possible to obtain positions at the sub-mas level for most of the ICRF sources having an optical counterpart brighter than 20.5 mag.
Key words: astrometry / reference systems / quasars: general
© ESO, 2016
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