Photographic proper motions and apparent B and V magnitudes of 5 ] 104 stars in the range m V \ 11 to over the sky area 18h48m ¹ a ¹ 20h04m and 17¡ ¹ d ¹ 25¡ (equinox B1900) are used to m V \ 14 investigate interstellar extinction as distant as 0.8 kpc from the Sun. The Vulpecula molecular cloud, linked to the Vul OB I stellar association, seems conspicuous at a distance of 0.3 kpc with a total extinction of about 1.5 mag, when analyzing 1.6 ] 104 stars with signiÐcant proper-motion components. Transverse velocities for a set of 103 stars along the boundary layer of the molecular cloud suggest a value of 7 ] 102 g cm2 s~1 for the shear viscosity coefficient of the interstellar medium in this region. The characteristic timescale is on the order of 20 Myr, and the free path is on the order of 20 pc. A transfer of optical energy of 2 ] 10~5 yr~1 is indeed suggested from a sample of 400 nebular vari-M _ able candidates at the interface between the suspected gas and dust components. Follow-up spectroscopic observations of three candidates with transverse velocity on the order of 23^14 km s~1 do not rule out the chances of detecting small-scale variations in the interstellar extinction. Key words : dust, extinction È Galaxy : structure È stars : kinematicsThe present study is, in some ways, similar to the work done by Sharpless using photometric observations. He identiÐed the Orion Nebula by selecting stars in front of the nebula and behind it (Sharpless 1952). When stellar proper motions k (in arcsec yr~1) are also available, it is possible to derive a kinematic distance. Since the mean transverse velocity dispersion of disk dwarfs is on the order of 20 km s~1, the nearby stars are segregated from the background stars by a signiÐcant total proper-motion component. The absorbing material can also be located by comparing photometric and kinematic distances (Fresneau 1994). This is di †erent from the analysis of the Wolf diagrams dealing with star counts, because we have an indication of the distance d and an indication of the color excess E(B[V ). The apparent B and V magnitudes are provided by photographic surveys, and the absolute magnitude is M V derived from the reduced proper-motion diagram. Hertzsprung realized indeed (Luyten 1922) that the quantity H \ V ] 5 log k ] 5, where k is the annual proper-motion component (in arcsec yr~1) and V is the apparent magnitude, when plotted versus B[V , is similar to an H-R diagram. Since k \ T /(4.737d) (where the transverse velocity T is in km s~1 and the distance d is in pc), and since the reduced proper motion is (Fresneau 1990). In our study, k and V satisfy 0A .006 yr~1 ¹ yr~1 and 11.0 ¹ V ¹ 14.0. k ¹ 0A .2