Find it in the sky
Vega, one of the night’s brightest stars, is a corner of the Summer Triangle. Beside it four faint stars make a small parallelogram, the lyre’s frame. On August evenings.
Northern sky
Lyra
Lyra: Vega was the first star photographed after the Sun.
Best in August, around 9 p.m.No. 52 of the 88 constellations by areaBrightest star Vega (magnitude 0.03)6 stars in this guide
The drawings on these maps are the game’s, and don’t show exact positions in the sky.
Legend
In Greek myth Lyra is the lyre of Orpheus, whose music charmed even stones. Sailing with the Argonauts, he played over the Sirens’ song and saved the ship.
Its stars
Magnitude says how bright a star looks from here: the smaller the number, the brighter the star.
Sheliak
Beta Lyrae
- Type
- Blue-white bright giant
- Distance
- about 960 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 3.52
- Name
- One of the Arabic names of the Lyre
Its two stars eclipse each other: its light swings between magnitude 3.2 and 4.4 every 12.94 days.
Sulafat
Gamma Lyrae
- Type
- Blue-white giant
- Distance
- about 620 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 3.24
- Name
- “The turtle” (Arabic)
Lyra’s second brightest star, a giant that has used up the hydrogen in its core.
Jiantai
Delta² Lyrae
- Type
- Red bright giant
- Distance
- about 770 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 4.22
- Name
- “The water-clock terrace” (Chinese)
A swollen red giant: its radius is 290 times the Sun’s.
Kautoki
Zeta¹ Lyrae
- Type
- White star
- Distance
- about 158 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 4.37
- Name
- “The adze handle” (Kapingamarangi)
A pair of stars that circle each other every 4.3 days.
Pongaponga
Epsilon¹ Lyrae
- Type
- White star
- Distance
- about 160 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 4.66
- Name
- “Nostrils” (Pukapukan)
Known as the Double Double: two pairs of stars, each of them a pair itself.
Vega
Alpha Lyrae
- Type
- White star
- Distance
- about 25 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 0.03
- Name
- “The falling eagle” (Arabic)
It was the northern pole star around 12,000 BC and will be again around the year 13,727.
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Sources: constellation areas follow the International Astronomical Union (IAU) boundaries; star values come from Wikipedia’s articles, based on Hipparcos and Gaia; the Sun’s dates come from EarthSky. Distances are rounded.