Have been waiting for this one since last year and viewed it last night with steady skies and acceptable transparency.
[I have edited this in early Oct 2014 as on careful re-listen to my taped observation I am sure I was only seeing the bright elongation and NOT the very dim elongations]
I agree that this is a peculiar and unique object although very tiny and as such requiring very good seeing. But then again, so is Eta CAR in that sort of class as a one of a kind tiny object.
After having brought this up in my 18" where with unfiltered view the brighter extensions off of both sides to me were clearly present on both NE and SW with averted. The direct view as well as averted offered the very rich golden-orange color that was a nice surprise in itself as I had only my chart I made a year ago with no notes taken with me last night or reviewed on this post till today when Steve Gottlieb pointed me back to this post that I had seen last year. It is indeed a tiny object and Steve brought it up in his 24" as well. This object also has the distinction of being on Steves 'DeepMap 600' selected object list of which I have observed all but one of the galaxies/clusters/nebula sort of objects but have not sought out all that many of the stars he lists there, this is well worth the view. I had not thought to use filters so maybe next month as it did not rise to meridian till rather late last night. I had not noticed the knot but did feel that the more eastern extension was easier to detect than the more western arm so perhaps that is partly due to the knot.
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