Raman-scattered HeII line in the planetary nebula M2-9 and in the symbiotic stars RR Telescopii and He 2-106

In this Letter, we report the detection of an emission feature at around 6545 Angstrom in the spectra of the bipolar planetary nebula M2-9 and the symbiotic stars RR Telescopii and He 2-106 and propose to identify it as the He ii Raman-scattered feature. This feature was predicted by Nussbaumer, Schmid, & Vogel, who suggested that it was formed through Raman scattering by atomic hydrogen of He II n = 6 --> n = 2 photons with a slightly shorter wavelength than that of Ly beta. The scattering cross section, similar to 10(-20) cm(2) for this process, implies the existence of a neutral hydrogen component with a column density N-HI similar to 10(20) cm(-2) around the He II emission regions in these objects, which are believed to be associated with the mass- loss process in the late stage of stellar evolution. Brief discussions on the astrophysical implications of Raman scattering in these objects are presented.