Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 1992. 30: 359-89 Copyright © 1992 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

3.3 SNe Ia in the Virgo Cluster

The distance to the Virgo cluster has been reviewed recently by van den Bergh (1989), who recommends D = 20.1 ± 1.5 Mpc, by Sandage & Tammann (1990), who give 21.9 ± 0.9 Mpc, and by Jacoby et al (1992), who find a weighted average of seven methods of 16.0 ± 1.7 Mpc and an unweighted average of 17.6 ± 2.2 Mpc. In these reviews the distance depends to some extent on SNe Ia. From six determinations of the Virgo distance that are independent of SNe Ia - based on globular clusters, novae, type II Supernovae, the D_n - relation, galactic diameters, and the Tully-Fisher method - Leibundgut & Tammann (1990) find 21.9 ± 0.9 Mpc. Here we will use 20.0 ± 3 Mpc (µ₀ = 31.51 ± 0.33). Combined with a well determined mean m_B⁰⁰ = 11.92 ± 0.11 for six SNe Ia in the Virgo cluster (Table 2), the adopted distance gives an extinction-corrected value M_B⁰⁰ = - 19.6 ± 0.4.