Status and Needs of Astrometry

Abstract A review will be presented of the status of the fundamental reference system. Mention will be made of the problems limiting the accuracy of transit circles and photographic astrometry and attempts at possible improvments in the near future. The progress in the preparation of the FK5 will be briefly mentioned, as will be the various methods used to approximate an inertial reference frame. Needs for higher accuracy in Astronomy fall in the area of better modeling of the Earth's motion (rotation, nutation, precession, the ecliptic, etc.) as well as a parallax and proper motion determination for galactic structure studies, stellar dynamics and stellar evolution. It will be assumed that interferometric binary star studies will be discussed elsewhere.