M22
Where is M22?
Look southwest, about 12° up at 20:20 in Sagittarius. It sinks lower through the evening and sets at 22:29.
- Rises
- 14:52
- Highest
- 18:40
- Sets
- 22:29
- Best after dark
- 20:20 · 12°
Can I see M22 tonight?
From London tonight, M22 is above the horizon after dark. It’s highest soon after dark, around 20:20, in the southwest at 12°.
At magnitude 5.1, with its light spread out, it needs binoculars and a dark sky.
This is position and timing only: clouds, haze and light pollution aren’t included.
What does M22 look like?
Eyes
Under dark skies, a faint fuzzy star.
Binoculars
A round, glowing ball with a brighter center.
Telescope
At 100 mm or more, many individual stars resolve across the cluster.
About M22
M22 is one of the brightest globular clusters in the sky and one of the nearest, about 10,000 light-years away. It is a ball of hundreds of thousands of ancient stars.
It was one of the first globular clusters ever discovered, in 1665, and it lies just above the lid of the Sagittarius Teapot.
From mid-northern latitudes M22 stays fairly low in the south; it is spectacular from more southern places.
M22 is about 100 light-years across. In 2012, radio astronomers found evidence for two stellar-mass black holes inside it, a surprise at the time.
It is also one of only a few globular clusters known to contain a planetary nebula.
It shines brighter than M13, but from mid-northern latitudes it never climbs very high, so haze near the horizon dims it. From the Southern Hemisphere it passes almost overhead.
Nearby in the sky
Questions
What is a globular cluster?
Sources: SkyMate; star chart: Wikidata (CC0). Positions computed for your place and time with astronomy-engine. Data & Licences