A Precise Distance to the Host Galaxy of the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817 Using Surface Brightness Fluctuations

This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We acknowledge funding from INAF project: Gravitational Wave Astronomy with the first detections of Advanced LIGO and Advanced VIRGO experiments (PI: E. Brocato). M.C., G.R., and J.P.B. acknowledge partial support from the PRIN INAF-2014 >EXCALIBURS: EXtragalactic distance scale CALIBration Using first-Rank Standard candles> project (PI: G. Clementini). The Berger Time-Domain Group at Harvard is supported in part by the NSF through grant AST-1714498, and by NASA through grants NNX15AE50G and NNX16AC22G. N.R.T. acknowledges support from STFC consolidated grant ST/N000757/1. P.D.A. and S.C. acknowledge support from ASI grant I/004/11/3. J.H. was supported by a VILLUM FONDEN Investigator grant (project number 16599). I.M. acknowledges STFC for partial support. We thank the anonymous referee for a clear and unequivocal report.