Optically Bright Extragalactic Radio Sources

In 2006, a radio astrometry project was launched with the overall goal to make comparison of coordinate systems derived from future space-born astrometry instruments with the coordinate system constructed from analysis of the global very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) more robust.

Investigation of their rotation, zonal errors, and the non-alignment of the radio and optical positions caused by both radio and optical structures are important for validation of both techniques. In order to support these studies, the densification of the list of compact extragalactic objects that are bright in both radio and optical ranges is desirable. A set of 105 objects from the list of 398 compact extragalactic radio sources with declinations >-10{deg} was observed with the VLBA+EVN with the primary goal of producing their images with milliarcsecond resolution.