Determination of the red shifts of selected IVS program objects. I

The spectroscopic red shifts of seven optical objects whose coordinates coincide with those of radio sources in the IVS (International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry) program list are determined from observations with the 6-m BTA telescope at the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A comparison of these spectra and red shifts with data in the radio frequency range shows that four of the objects discussed here are correctly identified, while the other three require further study. The distances to the radio sources derived from our measurements yield more accurate estimates of the cosmological model parameters than those based on the proper motions of these objects derived from geodesic VLBI observations.