Related papers: On the Accuracy of Three-dimensional Kinematic Dis…
The spiral arms of the Milky Way are being accurately located for the first time via trigonometric parallaxes of massive star forming regions with the BeSSeL Survey, using the Very Long Baseline Array and the European VLBI Network, and with…
Astrometry at centimeter wavelengths using Very Long Baseline Interferometry is approaching accuracies of ~1 uas for the angle between a target and a calibrator source separated by <1 degree on the sky. The BeSSeL Survey and the Japanese…
Over 100 trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions for masers associated with young, high-mass stars have been measured with the BeSSeL Survey, a VLBA key science project, the EVN, and the Japanese VERA project. These measurements provide…
With the publication of Gaia DR2, 1.3 billion stars now have public parallax and proper motion measurements. In this contribution, we compare the results for sources that have both optical and radio measurements, focusing on circumstellar…
The accuracy of stellar distances inferred purely from parallaxes degrades rapidly with distance. Proper motion measurements, when combined with some idea of typical velocities, provide independent information on stellar distances. Here I…
We use the multi-epoch K$\rm _S$ band observations, covering a $\sim$5 years baseline to obtain milli and sub-milli arcsec precision astrometry for a sample of eighteen previously known high proper motion sources, including precise…
We are using the VLBA and the Japanese VERA project to measure trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions of masers found in high-mass star-forming regions across the Milky Way. Early results from 18 sources locate several spiral arms. The…
We study Milky Way kinematics using a sample of 18.8 million main-sequence stars with r<20 and proper-motion measurements derived from SDSS and POSS astrometry, including ~170,000 stars with radial-velocity measurements from the SDSS…
We report trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions for three water masers and one methanol maser obtained with the VLBA as part of the BeSSeL Survey. Incorporating these parallaxes with 3-dimensional kinematic distances, we refine the…
Little is known about the portion of the Milky Way lying beyond the Galactic center at distances of more than 9 kilo-parsec from the Sun. These regions are opaque at optical wavelengths due to absorption by interstellar dust, and distances…
The morphology and kinematics of the spiral structure of the Milky Way is a long-standing problem in astrophysics. In this review we firstly summarize various methods with different tracers used to solve this puzzle. The astrometry of…
We compile and analyze ~200 trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions of molecular masers associated with very young high-mass stars. These measurements strongly suggest that the Milky Way is a four-arm spiral. Fitting log-periodic…
Recent advances in radio astrometry with the VLBA have resulted in near micro-arcsecond accurate trigonometric parallax and proper motion measurements for masers in star forming regions. We are now poised to directly measure the full…
Distances to high mass star forming regions (HMSFRs) in the Milky Way are a crucial constraint on the structure of the Galaxy. Only kinematic distances are available for a majority of the HMSFRs in the Milky Way. Here we compare the…
Various sign-posts of recent star-formation activity, such as water and methanol maser emission or magnetically active low-mass young stars, can be detected with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) radio arrays. The extremely accurate…
Many features of the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) contrive to make it the best telescope for pulsar astrometry. The measured proper motions and parallaxes allow distances and transverse velocities to be determined. These in turn provide…
We report four trigonometric parallaxes for high-mass star-forming regions within 4 kpc of the Galactic center. These measurements were made with the VLBA as part of the BeSSeL Survey. By associating these sources kinematically with…
We present the first astrometry catalog from the Japanese VLBI (very long baseline interferometer) project VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). We have compiled all the astrometry results from VERA, providing accurate trigonometric…
We report results of astrometric VLBI observations toward a Mira variable star BX~Cam using the VLBI array "VERA". The observations were performed from February 2012 to November 2014. Obtained parallax is 1.73$\pm$0.03 mas corresponding to…
We present the results of PSR$\pi$, a large astrometric project targeting radio pulsars using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). From our astrometric database of 60 pulsars, we have obtained parallax-based distance measurements for all…