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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2015
The International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) is presently realized by the positions of 608 compact, extragalactic radio sources (Ma & Feissel 1997) with milliarcsecond (mas) and sub-mas accuracy, all being on the same system, the International Celestial Reference System (ICRS). The Hipparcos Catalogue (ESA 1997) is the practical realization of the ICRF at optical wavelengths, giving high accuracy positions (≈1 mas) and proper motions (≈1 mas/yr) for 117955 stars (ESA 1997). The link between the radio and optical frames has been achieved by various methods (Kovalevsky et al. 1997). The accuracy of this link is estimated to be 0.6 mas at the mean epoch of Hipparcos (1991.25) for the orientation, and 0.25 mas/year for the system rotation.