Lyra, the Lyre, is a relatively small northern constellation which nevertheless is distinctive and easy to locate because brilliant Vega is contained within it.

Hold your mouse cursor over the image to see constellation figures, boundaries, and star identifications.

Lyra was associated with the myth of Orpheus in Greek mythology. Orpheus was a musician who carried the first lyre, a musical instrument like a harp. It was invented by Hermes and given to him by Apollo. Orpheus was killed by the Bacchantes and his lyre thrown into a river. Zeus sent an eagle to bring back the lyre. Both where then placed in the heavens as Lyra and Aquila. In some old drawings of the constellations, Lyra is sometimes shown as an eagle or vulture carrying Orpheus' lyre in its beak or wings.

The shape of the constellation is formed by the nearly equilateral triangle made up of Vega, 4.6-magnitude Epsilon Lyrae and 4.3-magnitude Zeta Lyrae, and a parallelogram formed by Zeta, Delta, Beta and Gamma Lyrae.

Alpha Lyrae is Vega, the fifth brightest star in the night sky at magnitude 0.03. It is a spectral-class A-type main sequence star that is located only 25 light-years from Earth, which is why it is so bright. Along with Deneb and Altair it forms the Summer Triangle.

Vega was the first star, besides the Sun, to be photographed. A Daguerreotype of Vega was taken on July 17, 1850 by William Bond and John Adams at Harvard College Observatory.

Beta Lyrae is Sheliak. It is a spectral-class A type eclipsing spectroscopic binary variable star with a magnitude range from 3.34 to 4.34 and a period of 12.9414 days. It is located 882 light-years away. A magnitude 7.2 F-type star also forms an optical double star that is located 46 arcseconds away from Beta Lyrae.

Lyra contains several interesting and different deep-sky objects including the quadruple star Epsilon Lyrae, the carbon star
T Lyrae, and the planetary nebula Messier 57, the Ring Nebula. All three are popular observing targets. It also contains globular cluster Messier 56.

Lyra was cataloged by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the second century C.E. (Common Era). It is the 52nd largest of today's 88 modern constellations, covering 286 square degrees of sky.

North is to the left in the above image.

Lyra Object Type: Constellation Size: 21° x 15° Image Field Centered At: RA: 18h 46m 57s Dec: +38° 09' 47"