Relativity in Astrometry, Celestial Mechanics and Geodesy

This monograph aims to provide the community of people involved in the establishment or use of highly precise spatial-temporal reference frames on earth or in space or interested in the dynamics of gravitationally interacting bodies, with a useful background of general relativity. General relativity is described in not-too-technical language as an integral part of ordinary classical physics and applied to such practical problems as clock synchronization, laser ranging to satellites or reflectors on the Moon, and very long base line interferometry. The present status of measuring techniques and levels of accuracy in the field are reviewed and it is shown how relativity enters the theoretical analysis of measuring data.