Magda Arnaboldi
ESO Garching
I will motivate the use of Planetary Nebulae (PNs) as distance indicators, tracers of stellar populations and kinematics in cold/hot stellar galactic systems. I will then discuss the PN visibility lifetimes and the PN luminosity function (PNLFs) in the Milky-Way and in Local Group galaxies. With these concepts in place, I will then present the results on the studies of PN populations in early-type galaxies (ETGs) in the Virgo cluster. I.e. the identification of PN populations in halos and intracluster/intragroup light, their distinct kinematics and PNLFs. I will then build on these results to show the increasing circular velocity curves in these ETGs and their extended mass assembly. I will conclude with the forward look on how to use PNs to trace single stars in galaxies in large scale structures like Coma at 100 Mpc distance with 30 meter class telescopes.