HIGH-SPEED FLOWS IN THE VICINITY OF THE TRAPEZIUM STARS

[OIII] 5007 angstrom line profiles at high spectral and spatial resolution have been obtained at a single slit position near the Trapezium cluster in the Orion Nebula (M42, NGC1976) using the Manchester Echelle Spectrometer (MES). The very long integration time at this position confirms the earlier tentative identification of a shell on the nearside of the Trapezium cluster with a relative velocity of -100 km s-1 and a radius of 1 arcminute. No receding counterpart is found. We believe this is the first detection of this feature at optical wavelengths, previous spectroscopic work (O' Dell et al., 1993), (Baldwin et al., 1991),(Castaneda, 1988) having concentrated on the main nebular material at relatively low velocities.