The U.S. Naval Observatory Robotic Astrometric Telescope (URAT) is observing the northern sky since April 2012 for an astrometric survey. Multiple overlaps per year are performed in a single bandpass (680$-$750 nm) using the redlens 20 cm aperture astrograph and a mosaic of large CCDs. Besides the regular, deep survey to magnitude 18.5, short exposures with an objective grating are taken to access stars as bright as 3rd magnitude. A brief overview of the program, observing and reductions is given. Positions on the 8 to 20 mas level are obtained of 66,202 Hipparcos stars at current epochs. These are compared to the Hipparcos Catalog to investigate its accuracy. About 20% of the observed Hipparcos stars are found to have inconsitent positions with the Hipparcos Catalog prediction on the 3 sigma level or over (about 75 mas or more discrepant position offsets). Some stars are now seen at an arcsec (or 25 sigma) off their Hipparcos Catalog predicted position.
Download