The distance of the Large Magellanic Cloud Cluster NGC 1866

Hubble Space Telescope V, I photometry of stars in the Large Magellanic Clo ud cluster NGC 1866 shows a well-defined cluster main sequence (MS) down to V = 25 mag, with little contamination from field or foreground stars. We u se the MS fitting procedure to link the distance of NGC 1866 to the Hipparc os determination of the distance for the Hyades MS stars, making use of evo lutionary prescriptions to allow for differences in the chemical compositio n. On this basis, we find a true distance modulus for NGC 1866 of 18.35 +/- 0.05 mag. If the cluster is assumed to lie in the LMC plane, then the LMC modulus is 0.02 mag less.