Aims. We attempt to extend the relation between the strengths of the interstellar Ca ii lines and the distances to early-type stars to objects beyond 1 kiloparsec, with the line saturation taken into account.Methods. We measure the Ca ii K and Ca ii H equivalent widths, and compute Ca ii column densities for 262 lines of sight towards early-type stars with available Hipparcos parallaxes (π). The targets are located within a few hundred parsecs of the Galactic plane, and span all the range of Galactic longitudes. We fit the N Ca ii -parallax relation with a function of the form π = 1/(a · N Ca ii + b), using a maximum-likelihood approach to take account of errors in both variables. We use the resultant formula to estimate distances to stars in OB associations and clusters, and compare them to those found in the literature, usually estimated by spectrophotometric methods. 1.3, we obtain the following approximate formula for the distance: D Ca ii = 77 + (2.78 + Results. For lines of sight with EW(K)/EW(H) > EW(K) EW(H) −0.932 )EW(H), where the equivalent widths EW(K) and EW(H) are in mÅ, and the distance D Ca ii in parsecs.The errors in D Ca ii , resulting from the uncertainty in the fit parameters and errors in the equivalent widths, are typically about 15% of the distance. We can also expect the equation not to hold for objects situated farther than a few hundred parsecs from the Galactic plane. We find several cases of significant column density differences between association or cluster members, especially notable in the Trumpler 16 cluster, indicating either a local contribution to the Ca ii column density, or background/foreground stars being confused with members. The ratio D Ca ii /D assoc appears to depend on the Galactic longitude, being highest in the range 70 • < l < 120 • and lowest for 200 • < l < 300 • . This effect may be due to large-scale structure being present in the Ca ii layer, or to the nonmember confusion being enhanced in these directions.

We show that the equivalent widths of the well-known interstellar Ca ii H and K lines can be used to determine the distances to OB stars in our Galaxy. The equivalent widths, measured in the spectra of 147 early-type stars, are strongly related to the Hipparcos parallaxes of those objects. The lines fitted to the parallax-equivalent width data are given by the formulaewhere is in arcseconds and EW is in milliangstroms. The form of the formulae, yielding a finite parallax even for zero absorption, shows that space within %100 pc of the Sun contains very little Ca ii, which is in agreement with the known dimensions of the Local Bubble. Using Ca ii lines for distance determination does not require the knowledge of the absolute magnitude of the object; it is thus well suited for targets for which the absolute calibration is either not precise (OB supergiants) or not available at all (peculiar objects). We also demonstrate that neither the reddening E (B À V ) nor the equivalent widths of interstellar K i and CH lines are suitable candidates for distance estimation, their relation with parallaxes being far less tight than for Ca ii.

We relate the equivalent widths of 11 diffuse interstellar bands, measured in the spectra of 49 stars, to different colour excesses in the ultraviolet. We find that most of the observed bands correlate positively with the extinction in the neighbourhood of the 2175‐Å  bump. Correlation with colour excesses in other parts of the extinction curve is more variable from one diffuse interstellar band to another; we find that some diffuse bands (5797, 5850 and 6376 Å) correlate positively with the overall slope of the extinction curve, while others (5780 and 6284 Å) exhibit negative correlation. We discuss the implications of these results on the links between the diffuse interstellar band carriers and the properties of the interstellar grains.

We relate the equivalent widths of the major diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) near 5797 and 5780 Å with different colour excesses, normalized by E(B−V), which characterize the growth of interstellar extinction in different wavelength ranges. It is demonstrated that the two DIBs correlate best with different parts of the extinction curve, and the ratio of these diffuse bands is best correlated with the far‐ultraviolet (UV) rise. A number of peculiar lines of sight are also found, indicating that the carriers of some DIBs and the far‐UV extinction can be separated in certain environments, e.g. towards the Per OB2 association.

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