 In our chapter on the Milky Way, we studied the nearby stars where parallax told us how far away they were. We developed the HR diagram as a way to calculate luminosity based on temperature and spectral analysis. We covered key standard candles such as Cepheid and Aralira variables, as well as Type 1a supernova. And we examined star clusters, planetary nebula and emission nebula for their beauty and value as standard candles. This distance ladder took us all the way across the galaxy. In our next chapter, we'll use all these techniques to move out into intergalactic space.