OPTICAL POSITIONS OF COMPACT EXTRAGALACTIC RADIO-SOURCES WITH RESPECTTO THE HIPPARCOS CATALOG

Optical positions relative to the Hipparcos Catalogue, and therefore w ithin the International Celestial Reference System (ICRS), have been o btained for the optical counterparts of 25 compact extragalactic radio sources (CERS) south of delta similar to 10 degrees. Most of these so urces are being monitored as Benchmark objects for the establishment o f a unified extragalactic radio/optical reference frame. Precision lev els as good as 0.1 '' in both coordinates were achieved. A comparison with VLBI radio positions available for these sources is presented. A finding chart is given for the optical counterpart of Q 1937-101. to a limiting magnitude of B similar to 20.5, no optical counterpart was f ound for the source 1148-671.