We present I -band Surface Brightness Fluctuations ( SBF ) measurements for 15 early type galaxies ( 3 giants , 12 dwarfs ) in the central region of the Centaurus cluster , based on deep photometric data in 7 fields obtained with VLT FORS1 and with very good seeing .
From the SBF-distances to our sample galaxies we determine the distance of the Centaurus cluster to be 41.3 \pm 2.1 Mpc ( 33.08 \pm 0.11 mag ) .
This places the Centaurus cluster at about the same distance as the “ Great Attractor ” .
We find a distance difference of 0.27 \pm 0.34 mag between the two subcomponents Cen30 and Cen45 , ruling out that both components are separated by their Hubble flow distance .
A distance difference of 0.48 \pm 0.21 mag is found between the central galaxies NGC 4696 ( Cen30 ) and NGC 4709 ( Cen45 ) of both components , supported by the different turn-over magnitudes of their respective globular cluster systems .
This suggests that Cen45 is falling into but has not yet reached Cen30 , supporting the idea of a large scale filament along the line of sight towards Centaurus ( Churazov et al . [ ] ) . H _ { 0 } =83.0 \pm 8.3 km/s/Mpc is obtained for our Cen30 sample taking into account the peculiar motion of the Local Group into the direction of the Centaurus cluster .
This value of H _ { 0 } corresponds to a much smaller Hubble flow distortion in the direction of Centaurus than determined by Tonry et al .
( [ ] ) , implying that the GA mass estimate by Tonry et al .
may be too high and/or that the Centaurus cluster falls into the GA almost perpendicularly to the line of sight .
As our mean single measurement error is very close to the measured distance scatter of the investigated galaxies , we can only derive an upper limit of \pm 10 Mpc radial extension for the Centaurus cluster , corresponding to a five times larger radial than tangential extension .
No evidence for an infall pattern into the Great Attractor is found within the uncertainties for the 11 galaxies with measured redshifts .