THE RELATIVE SIZE OF THE MILKY-WAY

Using Cepheid distances to 17 spiral galaxies we calculate the true li near diameters of those galaxies. These diameters are then compared to that of the Milky Way which is found to be, at most, an averagely siz ed spiral galaxy. When compared to galaxies of approximately the same Hubble type (2 < T < 6) the Milky Way is found to be slightly undersiz ed. This suggests that the Hubble constant is at the lower end of the currently accepted range of possibilities.