VLT Deep I-band Surface Brightness Fluctuations of IC 4296

From theoretical predictions, the introduction of 8-m class telescopes permits one to extend Surface Brightness Fluctuations measurements from the ground to ~7000 km/s, with a precision that is comparable to current space-based measurements. We have measured I--band SBF in IC 4296 in Abell 3565 cz~3630 km/s with the ESO Very Large Telescope. Adopting the Tonry et al. (2000) calibration for I-band SBF we determined a distance modulus of (I_o,k - M_I)=33.44 +/- 0.17 mag corresponding to a galaxy distance of 49 +/- 4 Mpc. This result is consistent with the HST observation from Lauer et al. (1998): (I_F814 - M_F814) = 33.47 +/- 0.13 mag.