The proper motions of fundamental stars. I. 1535 stars from the Basic FK5

A direct combination of the positions given in the HIPPARCOS catalogue with astrometric ground-based catalogues having epochs later than 1939 allows us to obtain new proper motions for the 1535 stars of the Basic FK5. The results are presented as the catalogue Proper Motions of Fundamental Stars (PMFS), Part I. The median precision of the proper motions is 0.5 mas/year for mu _alpha cos delta and 0.7 mas/year for mu _delta . The non-linear motions of the photocentres of a few hundred astrometric binaries are separated into their linear and elliptic motions. Since the PMFS proper motions do not include the information given by the proper motions from other catalogues (HIPPARCOS, FK5, FK6, etc.) this catalogue can be used as an independent source of the proper motions of the fundamental stars. Catalogue (Table 3) is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strastg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/365/222