Explanation of the Gaia vs mean UCAC coordinates list.


This is a list of 100 10 mv stars in 0° declination taken from the UCAC5 catalog. The explanations of the UCAC5 data are given in the documentation that accompanies the catalog:

item bytes  name  unit    description
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1  00-07  srcid         Gaia source ID 
  2  08-11  rag   mas     Gaia RA  at epoch 2015.0  (from DR1, rounded to mas)
  3  12-15  dcg   mas     Gaia Dec at epoch 2015.0 
  4  16-17  erg   0.1 mas Gaia DR1 position error RA  at epoch 2015.0
  5  18-19  edg   0.1 mas Gaia DR1 position error Dec at epoch 2015.0
  6   20    flg           1 = TGAS,  2 = other UCAC-Gaia star, 3 = other NOMAD
  7   21    nu            number of images used for UCAC mean position
  8  22-23  epi   myr     mean UCAC epoch (1/1000 yr after 1997.0)
  9  24-27  ira   mas     mean UCAC RA  at epi epoch on Gaia reference frame
 10  28-31  idc   mas     mean UCAC Dec at epi epoch on Gaia reference frame
 11  32-33  pmir  0.1 mas/yr  proper motion RA*cosDec (UCAC-Gaia)
 12  34-35  pmid  0.1 mas/yr  proper motion Dec       (UCAC-Gaia)
 13  36-37  pmer  0.1 mas/yr  formal error of UCAC-Gaia proper motion RA*cosDec
 14  38-39  pmed  0.1 mas/yr  formal error of UCAC-Gaia proper motion Dec
 15  40-41  gmag  mmag    Gaia DR1 G magnitude      (1/1000 mag)
 16  42-43  umag  mmag    mean UCAC model magnitude (1/1000 mag)
 17  44-45  rmag  mmag    NOMAD photographic R mag  {1/1000 mag)
 18  46-47  jmag  mmag    2MASS J magnitude         (1/1000 mag)
 19  48-49  hmag  mmag    2MASS H magnitude         (1/1000 mag)
 20  50-51  kmag  mmag    2MASS K magnitude         (1/1000 mag)
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The columns in the Gaia vs mean UCAC coordinates table are as follows:

Gaia source ID: The Gaia identifier for the star. Item 1.

Gaia RA, dec: epoch 2015.0: Items 2 and 3.

Mean UCAC RA, dec at epoch: Items 9 and 10.

epoch: Item 8.

UCAC precessed to 2015: Items 9 and 10, precessed to 2015.0

Umag: Item 16.

Given the above documentation, one would expect that the "mean UCAC position at epoch" precessed to 2015 would be the same or very close to the Gaia position. It's not.