Not so faint fuzzy tonight?

I was out grilling some hot dogs (38 degrees isn't so cold, is it?), and
glanced up to see how the sky was looking.

After a few seconds, having no dark adaption at all, I caught a fuzziness
near the zenith. After I turned the outside light off, it was even more
prominent. It's an elongated fuzzy patch in my 10x50's, brighter than any
galaxy I've seen even through my telescope. In fact, it looks to the
naked eye a bit like M31 looks in my 8" telescope.

There's solid cloud cover right now, so I can't see it anymore.

There wasn't a whole lot of clear sky when I first saw it, so the only
location I can come up with is to roughly follow a line from Epsilon Cas
through Gamma Cas, for a few tens of degrees. It was near the zenith at
around 21:00 EDT at -74:47W and 41:18N. I see nothing in the charts to
explain it. I estimate its size to be a couple degrees in length, and
maybe half a degree in width.

Anyone else see this thing?


--
- Mike

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