ABSTRACT
The authors have measured accurate, new extinction constants for the planetary nebulae considered by Lutz in her earlier studies of distances, in which these were determined by comparing nebular extinctions with color excesses of surrounding O and B stars whose distances are known. Instead of fitting a curve to all the stellar data, the authors bracket the nebular extinction with a range in color excess, and average the distances of the stars that fall within the band. Two of the eight nebulae considered lie outside the range of the stellar data, illustrating the error that can be introduced into the method by insufficiently deep photometry, which can cause dust distances to be overestimated. For the others, the typical uncertainty is still high, averaging about ±55%. The derived distances marginally support the distance scale used by Cahn and Kaler as well as the distance method employed by Daub.