Visible about half way up from the horizon in the southern sky, and on the left side of the summer Milky Way, it lies in an otherwise fairly clear area of the sky. If you know where to look, it can be fairly easily spotted with binoculars. You need a 10" scope or larger to resolve the stars around the core. Like almost all globular clusters, the stars in this one are some of the oldest in our galaxy, about 13 billion years. About the same as M3 and M5. At 37,000 light years away, it is further out from the central area of our galaxy than most globulars, but is still within the central region.

The gravitational influence of M2 extends out about 175 light-years (about 1/3 the width of the full frame picture) from it's core, but the 1/2 mass radius is within 10 light years of the center. M2 contains contains about 150,000 stars, and is one of the richer and more compact globular clusters.

10" F6.3 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope, (1600mm F.L.) Modified Canon 300D camera at prime focus, Baader IR-UV filter, Baader coma corrector
6 photos aligned and averaged together, then brightness, color, and contrast enhanced.
Each photo, 100 seconds exposure at ISO 800