Globular cluster
M19 (M19)
In Ophiuchus (Oph) • Magnitude 7.5 • 17 arcminutes
Open the free AstroPlanner with M19 pre-selected, scored against your telescope, location, and the live cloud forecast.
One of the most noticeably flattened globular clusters known — instead of a perfect sphere, it is visibly squashed into an oblate shape. This deformation is caused by the powerful tidal forces from the galactic centre, which lies only about 28,000 light-years away and is literally bending the cluster out of shape.
M19 at a glance
| Catalog IDs | M19, N 6273 |
| Type | Globular cluster |
| Constellation | Ophiuchus (Oph) |
| Right ascension | 17h 02m 35s |
| Declination | -26° 16' 12" |
| Apparent magnitude | 7.47 |
| Surface brightness | 12.0 mag/arcsec² |
| Angular size | 17.0 × 17.0 arcmin |
| Max altitude at 45°N | 19° |
| Best imaging months | Mar, Apr, May |
How to image M19
M19 sits in the constellation Ophiuchus at right ascension 17h 02m 35s and declination -26° 16' 12". To frame and integrate it well, AstroPlanner will compute the optimal moonless window for tonight from your location, the field-of-view fit against your sensor and focal length, the suggested total integration time given your aperture and sky Bortle class, and a cloud-aware schedule that drops it from the plan if your nearest cloud forecast spike overlaps the best altitude window.