The local system of early type stars - Spatial extent and kinematics Published uvby and H-beta photometric data and proper motions arecompiled and analyzed to characterize the structure and kinematics ofthe bright early-type O-A0 stars in the solar vicinity, with a focus onthe Gould belt. The selection and calibration techniques are explained,and the data are presented in extensive tables and graphs and discussedin detail. The Gould belt stars of age less than 20 Myr are shown togive belt inclination 19 deg to the Galactic plane and node-lineorientation in the direction of Galactic rotation, while the symmetricaldistribution about the Galactic plane and kinematic properties (purecircular differential rotation) of the belt stars over 60 Myr oldresemble those of fainter nonbelt stars of all ages. The unresolveddiscrepancy between the expansion observed in the youngest nearby starsand the predictions of simple models of expansion from a point isattributed to the inhomogeneous distribution of interstellar matter.
Radial velocities for early type stars in six galactic regions Coudespectroscopy has been carried out for 353 stars of spectral typesB0-A0 and V magnitudes between 6.5 and 10.8 m, selected in six regions(three northern and three southern) close to the galactic plane at thegalactic longitudes 135, 175, 315 and 350 deg. The radial velocitieswere obtained by cross-correlating each spectrogram with a referencespectrogram giving an internal error of 1.4 km/s.
