Howard,

I have looked into some online resources, and it seems that the Hubble photo covers only the central pair of stars (the black dots) plus the innermost portion of the northern and southern jets, while the DSS photo shows the entire object including the eastern and western arms. Also, if you look at the blue POSS II plates, the western arm has a fainter extension to it that goes beyond the bright condensation. This might account for the ambiguity in my observation. As soon as the extension came into my view the western arm was doubled in length.

Greetings
Johannes