Night owls looking southeast late this evening should easily be able to find the Teapot of Sagittarius, a large asterism that lies close to the plane of the Milky Way. The top of the Teapot’s lid is marked by magnitude 2.8 Lambda (λ) Sagittarii, and just 2.5° northeast of this star is tonight’s target: globular cluster M22.
Shining at magnitude 5.1, M22 is one of the brightest globulars in our sky. It’s best seen with binoculars or a small telescope, although observers with dark skies and a clear horizon can catch its fuzzy glow with the naked eye as well. M22 spans about the same size on the sky as the Full Moon and contains at least 70,000 stars. It stands roughly 10,000 light-years away, making it a relatively close globular cluster, and is physically some 200 light-years across.
M22 is visible through midnight and into the early-morning hours of the 18th as Sagittarius arcs low through the southern sky. It transits, or reaches its highest point in the sky, around 2 A.M. local daylight time, which will be the best time to catch it if you’re looking to study it in detail.
Sunrise: 5:31 A.M.
Sunset: 8:31 P.M.
Moonrise: 12:28 A.M.
Moonset: 11:46 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (62%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40° N 90° W. The Moon’s illumination is given at 12 P.M. local time from the same location.
For a look ahead at more upcoming sky events, check out our full Sky This Week column.
