There were four 1.5-hour sessions of Division I business meetings during the XXVIIth IAU General Assembly. The first three were devoted to the reports of Commissions, Working Groups and services associated with the Division, discussion about plans for the next triennium and future structure of the Division. Scientific presentations on the future space astrometric mission Gaia were made at the fourth session.

A continuation of this WG was voted for at the IAU GA 2006 in Prague. The International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) is defined by the positions of 212 distant quasars at radio wavelengths. The primary, optical reference frame is the Hipparcos Celestial Reference Frame (HCRF), which is the Hipparcos Catalog without astrometric ‘problem’ stars (in: H. Rickman (ed.) 2001, Proceedings IAU XXIV General Assembly, Transactions IAU XXIVB (San Francisco: ASP), Resolution B1.2). The Tycho-2 catalog with its 2.5 million brightest stars forms the first step in the densification of the optical reference frame. However, the limiting magnitude of about V = 12 of the Tycho-2 catalog is not sufficient for most applications in astronomy and the goal of this IAU Working Group is to further extend the grid of highly accurate positions and motions toward more and fainter stars. The web site of this WG is at <ad.usno.navy.mil/dens_wg/>.

Van Leeuwen has completed and published the new reduction of the Hipparcos data. Parallax accuracies have improved by up to a factor five for the brightest stars and correlations effectively removed.

Division I provides a focus for astronomers studying a wide range of problems related to fundamental physical phenomena such as time, the inertial reference frame, positions and proper motions of celestial objects and precise dynamical computation of the motions of bodies in stellar or planetary systems in the Universe.

The IAU Division I Working Group on Nomenclature for Fundamental Astronomy (NFA) was established by the IAU XXV General Assembly with the task of providing proposals for new nomenclature associated with the implementation of the IAU XXIV GA resolutions (2000) and to make related educational efforts for bringing the issue to the notice of scientists in the community.

The Business Meeting was opened by the president, Imants Platais. He presented the agenda which was unanimously approved. This session was attended by 40 participants. The meeting approved Dafydd Evans as secretary of minutes.

We present the proposals of the IAU Division I Working Group on Nomenclature for Fundamental Astronomy (NFA) that was formed at the IAU XXV General Assembly in 2003.

This triennial report from Commission 8 covers astrometry-related matters for objects ranging from Solar system bodies out to Milky Way stars and QSOs at cosmological distances. This enormous range of distances is needed to establish, maintain, and improve the metric of the visible Universe--a very challenging effort since everything is moving. The progress of astrometry in the last three years (2002-2005) is reflected here. To locate the references, the reader is advised to check the NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service and the expanded report posted at URL http://www.pha.jhu.edu/iau_comm8/comm8.html

Modern tasks of high precision astrometry demand optical coordinate systems including more faint stars than are available now in current conventional systems (Hipparcos). For this purpose it is suggested to use old photographic observations accumulated in the Pulkovo Observatory. Extensive observational data have been obtained at Pulkovo Observatory during the last century in the framework of several programs, e.g. Pulkovo Galaxy plan, etc. Observations have been made with the Normal Astrograph from 1894 to the present. The data are investigated with the aim of extending the Hipparcos catalog to stars fainter than 11th magnitude. All available observations are taken into account. A description of the material considered is given. The distribution of the selected plates over the celestial sphere is shown as well. Coordinates of faint stars in the Hipparcos system are calculated for selected areas. The accuracy of computed star coordinates is analyzed. Results of the investigation are presented.