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Paper: The brightest stars as distance indicators
Volume: 4, The Extragalactic Distance Scale: Proceedings of the ASP 100th Anniversary Symposium
Page: 103
Authors: Humphreys, Roberta M.
Abstract: The luminosities of the brightest early-type supergiants have a well known dependence on the luminosity of the galaxy. In addition, many of the brightest blue 'stars' are actually compact HII regions, clusters, and composite images. This is a serious problem in increasingly distant galaxies. Therefore, they are not recommended as distance indicators. The brightest M supergiants have an upper bound to their bolometric luminosities due to the stability limit of the most massive evolved stars, making the red supergiants potentially powerful distance indicators.
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