[Contents], [Among the stars]

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July: Lyra, the lyre

Lyra lies just to the west of the Northern Cross and the summer Milky Way. It is a parallelogram with the bright star, Vega, nearby, and it looks somewhat like the small musical instrument of Orpheus.

Vega can be considered the "camper's star" because it lies nearly overhead in the evening all summer.

Here are some facts about Vega

• It is only 25 light years away:
• It is 100 times as bright as the sun.
• Its color is white because its temperature is about 10,000K, compared to the sun's 5,700K

The constellation Lyra has three treasures:

• The easiest to find is epsilon Lyra, a double-star next to Vega, that can be seen easily with binoculars. Each star is also a double, but much harder to resolve.
• Beta Lyra, the brighter star at the far end of the parallelogram, is a variable star. Eclipses every 13 days dim its light to half.
• With a moderate telescope (8-inches or more) you can see the Ring Nebula between the two stars at the far end of the parallelogram. It is a pale ring of light known as a "planetary nebula."