Precise absolute astrometry from the vlba imaging and polarimetry survey at 5GHz

Abstract

We present accurate positions for 857 sources derived from the astrometric analysis of 16 eleven-hour experiments from the Very Long Baseline Array imaging and polarimetry survey at 5GHz (VIPS). Among the observed sources, positions of 430 objects were not previously determined at milliarcsecond-level accuracy. For 95% of the sources the uncertainty of their positions ranges from 0.3 to 0.9mas, with a median value of 0.5mas. This estimate of accuracy is substantiated by the comparison of positions of 386 sources that were previously observed in astrometric programs simultaneously at 2.3/8.6GHz. Surprisingly, the ionosphere contribution to group delay was adequately modeled with the use of the total electron content maps derived from GPS observations and only marginally affected estimates of source coordinates. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.