Early-type stars observed in the ESO UVES Paranal Observatory Project - I. Interstellar NaI UV, TiII and CaII K observations*

We present an analysis of interstellar NaI (λ_air= 3302.37 and 3302.98 Å), TiII(λ_air= 3383.76 Å) and CaII K (λ_air= 3933.66 Å) absorption features for 74 sightlines towards O- and B-type stars in the Galactic disc. The data were obtained from the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph Paranal Observatory Project, at a spectral resolution of 3.75 km s^-1 and with mean signal-to-noise ratios per pixel of 260, 300 and 430 for the NaI, TiII and CaII observations, respectively. Interstellar features were detected in all but one of the TiII sightlines and all of the CaII sightlines. The dependence of the column density of these three species with distance, height relative to the Galactic plane, HI column density, reddening and depletion relative to the solar abundance has been investigated. We also examine the accuracy of using the NaI column density as an indicator of that for HI. In general, we find similar strong correlations for both Ti and Ca, and weaker correlations for Na. Our results confirm the general belief that Ti and Ca occur in the same regions of the interstellar medium (ISM) and also that the TiII/CaII ratio is constant over all parameters. We hence conclude that the absorption properties of Ti and Ca are essentially constant under the general ISM conditions of the Galactic disc.