We present analyses to determine the fundamental parameters of the Galaxy based on VLBI astrometry of 52 Galactic maser sources obtained with VERA, VLBA and EVN. We model the Galaxy's structure with a set of parameters including the Galaxy center distance R 0 , the angular rotation velocity at the LSR Ω 0 , mean peculiar motion of the sources with respect to Galactic rotation (U src , V src , W src ), rotation-curve shape index, and the V component of the Solar peculiar motions V ⊙ . Based on a Markov chain Monte Carlo method, we find that the Galaxy center distance is constrained at a 5% level to be R 0 = 8.05 ± 0.45 kpc, where the error bar includes both statistical and systematic errors. We also find that the two components of the source peculiar motion U src and W src are fairly small compared to the Galactic rotation velocity, being U src = 1.0 ± 1.5 km s −1 and W src = −1.4 ± 1.2 km s −1 . Also, the rotation curve shape is found to be basically flat between Galacto-centric radii of 4 and 13 kpc. On the other hand, we find a linear relation between V src and V ⊙ as V src = V ⊙ − 19 (±2) km s −1 , suggesting that the value of V src is fully dependent on the adopted value of V ⊙ . Regarding the rotation speed in the vicinity of the Sun, we also find a strong correlation between Ω 0 and V ⊙ . We find that the angular velocity of the Sun, Ω ⊙ , which is defined as Ω ⊙ ≡ Ω 0 + V ⊙ /R 0 , can be well constrained with the best estimate of Ω ⊙ = 31.09 ± 0.78 km s −1 kpc −1 . This corresponds to Θ 0 = 238 ± 14 km s −1 if one adopts the above value of R 0 and recent determination of V ⊙ ∼12 km s −1 .

We have measured the annual parallax of the H 2 O maser source associated with an infrared dark cloud MSXDC G034.43+00.24 from the observations with VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). The parallax is 0.643 ± 0.049 mas, corresponding to the distance of 1.56 +0.12 −0.11 kpc. This value is less than the half of the previous kinematic distance of 3.7 kpc. We revise the core mass estimates of MSXDC G034.43+00.24, based on virial masses, LTE masses and dust masses and show that the core masses decrease from the previous estimations of ∼ 1000M ⊙ to hundreds of M ⊙ . The spectral type derived from the luminosity also changes from O9.5 to B1 in the case of MM1. This spectral type is still consistent with that of the massive star. The radial velocity derived from the flat rotation model is smaller than the observed velocity, which corresponds to the peculiar motion of ∼ 40 km s −1 in the line-of-sight direction.

We present the initial results of multi-epoch VLBI observations of the 22 GHz H 2 O masers in the Orion KL region with VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). With the VERA dual-beam receiving system, we have carried out phase-referencing VLBI astrometry and successfully detected an annual parallax of Orion KL to be 2.29±0.10 mas, corresponding to the distance of 437±19 pc from the Sun. The distance to Orion KL is determined for the first time with the annual parallax method in these observations. Although this value is consistent with that of the previously reported, 480±80 pc, which is estimated from the statistical parallax method using proper motions and radial velocities of the H 2 O maser features, our new results provide the much more accurate value with an uncertainty of only 4%. In addition to the annual parallax, we have detected an absolute proper motion of the maser feature, suggesting an outflow motion powered by the radio source I along with the systematic motion of source I itself.

We report on results of multi-epoch VLBI observations of H$_2$O masers associated with a low-mass young stellar object, IRAS 16293$-$2422 in $\rho$ Oph East, and a fringe-phase and position reference source, ICRF J162546.8$-$252738, using the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA) for high-precision astrometry. We obtained an annual parallax of a maser feature to be $\pi=$ 5.6$^{+1.5}_{-0.5}$ mas, corresponding to a distance of $D=178^{+18}_{-37}$ pc. We also found 10 relative proper motions of maser features with respect to the maser feature mentioned above. The motion of the accompanying young stellar object (YSO) has already been found in thermal continuum emission previously observed with the Very Large Array. The intrinsic motions of masers have been estimated from the relative proper motions after the YSO’s motion is subtracted from, and a systemic secular motion of the position reference feature is added to the proper motions originally measured. The intrinsic maser kinematical structure may trace a bipolar outflow.

We performed the astrometry of H$_2$O masers in the Galactic star-forming region Onsala 2 North (ON 2 N) with the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA). We obtained a trigonometric parallax of 0.261$\ \pm\ $0.009 mas, corresponding to a heliocentric distance of 3.83$\ \pm\ $0.13 kpc. ON 2 N is expected to be on the solar circle, because its radial velocity with respect to the local standard of rest (LSR) is nearly zero. By using the present parallax and proper motions of the masers, the galactocentric distance of the Sun and the Galactic rotation velocity at the Sun are found to be $R_0$$=$ 7.80$\ \pm\ $0.26 kpc and $\Theta_0$$=$ 213$\ \pm\ $5 km s$^{-1}$, respectively. The ratio of Galactic constants, namely the angular rotation velocity of the LSR, can be determined more precisely, and is found to be $\Omega_0$$=$$\Theta_0/R_0$$=$ 27.3$\ \pm\ $0.8 km s$^{-1}$kpc$^{-1}$, which is consistent with recent estimations, but different from 25.9 km s$^{-1}$kpc$^{-1}$ derived from the recommended values of $\Theta_0$ and $R_0$ by the International Astronomical Union (1985).