The Great Sagittarius Globular Cluster

M22 (NGC 6656) Globular Cluster
Sketch by Janis Romer and text by Frank McCabe

Janis has beautifully captured the ancient, large, bright gravity held group of stars known as M 22. Only Omega Centauri and 47 Tucanae of the 140 or so globular clusters are brighter. This beauty of more than 100,000 suns scintillates above the lid of the teapot in Sagittarius. Specifically it is located at R.A. 18h 36m; Dec. -23° 54′. It is well placed if you are not too far north. At a distance of 10,400 light years away it is close to us and shines at about 5th magnitude.
William Herschel may have been the first observer to recognize this patch of light as a cluster of faint stars.
As you can see in this fine sketch many stars are visible here using a telescope of 8″ aperture. Hundreds of the stars are as bright as 11th magnitude in M 22. Currently this globular cluster is receding from us at 144 km. /sec as it orbits the center of the Milky Way.