The surface brightness and distance of Dwingeloo 1

The Tully-Fisher distance to the galaxy Dwingeloo 1, recently discovered very close to the Galactic Plane, is highly uncertain because of the range of possible foreground extinction values which have been suggested. We show that very high values of A B (10 magnitudes) or low values (4 magnitudes) are unreasonable since the intrinsic surface brightness implied for Dwingeloo 1 would be unrealistically high or low for a mid type disc galaxy. Obtaining 'normal' surface brightness values requires A B close to 6 magnitudes. We therefore concur with distance estimates which suggest values 3 Mpc.