Maximum luminosities of type Ia supernovae from Cepheid distances and the value of H-0

Supernovae of type Ia, with neutral colors (B - V similar or equal to 0.0), are the best standard candles known. They define at maximum light a tight, perfectly linear Hubble diagram out to 30 000 km s(-1). Therefore the absolute magnitude of a single (nearby) SNe Ia calibrates, in principle, the intercept of the Hubble line and hence the large-scale value of H-0. An FIST program to determine Ho has so far provided the Cepheid distances to seven SNe Ia. Their mean absolute magnitude M(B)(max) = -19.52 +/- 0.07 requires H-0 = 56 +/- 3. Possibly remaining systematic errors tend to make the true value of Ho rather smaller than larger. The possibility of H-0 greater than or equal to 70 can be excluded.