Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2017
From measurements of Tautenburg Schmidt plates with the APM facility in Cambridge we obtained absolute proper motions of the Galactic globular clusters M 3 and M 92 directly with respect to large numbers of background galaxies (Scholz et al. 1993, 1994). We have extended our work to the dSphs in Draco and Ursa Minor (Scholz & Irwin 1994) and to other Galactic globular clusters using Tautenburg, Palomar and UK Schmidt plates. Combining our absolute proper motion of a cluster with its known radial velocity and distance (using common parameters of the solar motion) we derive the cluster orbit in the Galaxy (cf. Odenkirchen & Brosche 1992).