Messier 24, also called the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud, lies in the constellation Sagittarius.
M24 is not a single star cluster but a bright, crowded-looking region of the Milky Way, where a relatively clear window through interstellar dust reveals distant stars. French astronomer Charles Messier catalogued it in 1764, listing it as object 24 in his famous catalogue of comet-like celestial objects.
The star cloud covers roughly 2° by 1° in the sky and has an apparent magnitude of about 2.5, making it visible with binoculars under dark skies. It lies in a particularly rich part of the Milky Way because the Galactic Center is in the direction of Sagittarius.
A common mix-up is identifying M24 with NGC 6603, a compact open cluster embedded within the star cloud. M24 is the broad stellar window itself. Readers may also confuse it with the Large Sagittarius Star Cloud, a separate Milky Way feature located farther south.