M 26 Deep sky · Open cluster in Scutum · M 26 · NGC 6694
M 26
A small open cluster in Scutum that lives in the shadow of its brighter neighbour, the Wild Duck Cluster.
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- Type
- Open cluster
- Designations
- M 26 · NGC 6694
- Constellation
- Scutum
- Apparent magnitude
- 8.0
- Apparent size
- 10′
- Position (J2000)
- RA 18h 45m · Dec −09° 23′
The full Moon, about 31′ across, is 3.1 times as wide. The Sun passes 14° from it around early January, and for about 12 days of the year it sits within 15° of the Sun, lost in its glare.
When to see it
On the night of Wed 30 Jun 2027, when it is highest around midnight, on each city’s own clock:
| From | Rises | Highest | Sets |
|---|---|---|---|
| London GMT+1 | 20:00 | 01:11 · 29° | 06:23 |
| New York EDT | 19:40 | 01:06 · 40° | 06:33 |
| Singapore GMT+8 | 19:19 | 01:17 · 79° | 07:15 |
| Sydney GMT+10 | 17:43 | 00:08 · 65° | 06:32 |
Common questions
- Can I see it from 50° north?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 31° up in the south.
- Can I see it from 35° south?
- Yes. It rises and sets, and at its highest it stands 64° up in the north.
- When is the best time of year to see it?
- Around late June, when it stands opposite the Sun and is highest at midnight. It comes round about two hours earlier each month, so by late September it is highest in the early evening, and in late March not until the hours before dawn.
- Naked eye, binoculars or telescope?
- Binoculars. At magnitude 8.0 it is past the eye, but a 50 mm pair under a dark sky reaches about magnitude 11.0.
Look for
Find the Wild Duck Cluster first, then sweep south-west: this one is smaller and sparser, a handful of stars in a telescope.
Look for
From 50° north it climbs to 31°; from 35° north it climbs to 46°; from the equator it climbs to 81°; from 35° south it climbs to 64°.
Look for
Magnitude 8.0 against the faintest star each can show: the eye under a city sky, 4.5 (3.5 short); the eye under a dark country sky, 7.0 (1.0 short); 50 mm binoculars under that dark sky, 11.0 (3.0 to spare); a 100 mm telescope there, 12.5 (4.5 to spare). Through 7×50 binoculars, whose field is about 7.1° across, it spans 2% of the field’s width; through a 100 mm telescope at 50×, a field about 1° across, it spans 17% of the field’s width.