Interesting timing. This past new moon weekend, I wrote a detailed naked-eye report on the Milky Way from the pristine skies of the Warner Mountains of northeastern California in my logbooks. Here's what I had to say about the "Ophiuchus loop" of the milky way:

"The visibility of [a certain] dark rift highlights the presence of brighter nebulosity near Dschubba, between it and [Al Niyat]. The bright rift appears to further continue up along the curve of Scorpius' head. It cuts over north[west] of zeta Ophiuchi. The region [north / northeast] of zeta Ophiuchi also seems bright, but less distinctly so. This vague nebulosity almost connects with the bright branch of the Milky Way ending at Taurus Poniatovii in an amorphous, vague, faint and thick third band. The vaguest section is between Taurus Poinatovii and zeta Oph"

Now, this has little relevance to the OOTW except for this vague illustrative sketch that I made:

zeta_oph.jpg

Coincidentally, the region that I mark as "strongest contrast around zeta Oph" corresponds squarely with the two strands of nebulosity Scott has marked in the second image. While making this observation, I had no idea which part of the zeta Oph nebulosity was brightest or which part was faintest. The coincidence of the location of the contrasty region is interesting... An imager friend (Tarun Kottary) who was with me informed me that there's a lot of faint dust clouds in that region of the sky, which is what constitutes the third "Ophiuchus loop" of the milky way. I quote what I wrote in my report to TAC:

"The region around zeta Ophiuchus appeared distinctly brighter, although I would not attribute this to the huge H-alpha nebulosity around zeta given how red it is; it could just be some aspect of the Milky Way in a band in which the night vision is more sensitive."

I wish I had pointed my binoculars at it, but I was sufficiently mesmerized by the naked eye view of the milky way that I did not think of reducing my field of view. The coincidence of the position makes me a little more likely to believe that I was picking up hints of the zeta Oph nebulosity naked eye, but I would hesitate to call it until there are more reproductions of this.