Lyra

A small harp with a bright jewel

Lyra represents a lyre, the small harp of ancient Greece. It covers only a little sky, but it is easy to find thanks to Vega, a brilliant blue-white star that dominates summer evenings in the northern hemisphere.

Next to Vega, four fainter stars form a small parallelogram, the body of the harp. Together they make one of the most compact and recognizable patterns in the sky.

How to find it

On a July evening at 40°N, look high in the east; by late August Vega is close to overhead. It is the brightest star in that part of the sky, so it is hard to miss even from a city.

Vega is also the brightest corner of the Summer Triangle. Deneb in Cygnus lies about 24 degrees to the east-northeast, and Altair in Aquila about 34 degrees to the south-east. If you see a big triangle of bright stars on a summer night, the brightest corner is Lyra.

In spring, you can reach it from the Big Dipper's handle: a long line from the bowl over the handle's curve leads in the general direction of Vega in late evening.

Main stars and their names

Vega comes from the Arabic al-nasr al-waqi, 'the swooping eagle' or 'falling vulture', an older picture of these stars as a bird with folded wings. Vega is about twice the Sun's mass, spins very fast, and is surrounded by a disk of dust. It was long used as the reference star for the magnitude scale, so its magnitude is close to zero.

Sheliak (Beta Lyrae) means 'harp' or 'tortoise'. It is an eclipsing binary, two stars that pass in front of each other, so its brightness drops and rises every 13 days. Sulafat (Gamma Lyrae) means 'tortoise', recalling the myth that the first lyre was made from a tortoise shell.

Deep-sky objects for binoculars and small telescopes

Epsilon Lyrae sits about 2 degrees east-northeast of Vega. Sharp eyes can see it as two stars, and binoculars split it easily. A small telescope at high power shows that each of those stars is itself a close pair, hence the name Double Double.

The Ring Nebula, M57, lies about midway between Sheliak and Sulafat. It is a planetary nebula, a shell of gas thrown off by a Sun-like star near the end of its life, about 2,000 light-years away. A small telescope shows it as a tiny gray smoke ring; you will not see the colors of photographs.

M56 is a globular cluster, a dense ball of very old stars, between Sulafat and Albireo in Cygnus. It is faint in binoculars and looks like a fuzzy round patch in a small telescope.

Mythology

In Greek myth the god Hermes made the first lyre from a tortoise shell and gave it to Apollo, who gave it to Orpheus. His music could calm wild animals and move rocks. After Orpheus died, the Muses asked Zeus to place his lyre among the stars.

In China, Korea and Japan, Vega is the weaver girl, separated from her love, the herdsman Altair, by the river of the Milky Way. They meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month, a festival known as Qixi in China and Tanabata in Japan.

Practical observing tips

Summer evenings are best, when Lyra is high and steady. Vega is a good star for testing a telescope's focus or for checking color: compare its blue-white light with orange Arcturus low in the west.

Earth's axis slowly traces a circle over about 26,000 years, a motion called precession. Around 14,000 years ago Vega was near the north celestial pole, and it will be again roughly 12,000 years from now. Until then, enjoy the Double Double and the Ring on any clear summer night, even under suburban skies.