Lyra

By BrightK self-checked Published 2026-09-03 Updated 2026-10-18 Editorial policy

• Constellations
• In the sky now

What is Lyra?

Constellations· Summer evenings (N) · small parallelogram beside Vega. A small constellation that still stands out overhead on summer nights. Brilliant Vega, the Weaver Girl star, and the little parallelogram beside it form the shape of a lyre.

Stars of the figure

The 1 brightest of the 5 stars used in the figure (5 lines). Lower magnitude means brighter.

Deep-sky objects near this constellation

Constellation basics

Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.

Vega — the first photographed star turned out to be flattened

Vega was the first star other than the Sun ever photographed. In July 1850 a photographic plate fixed to a telescope at Harvard College Observatory recorded its image. In 1872 Henry Draper took the first photograph of a star's spectrum, its light spread out like a rainbow, and again the star was Vega. In 1983 the infrared satellite IRAS found a disk of dust around it, the first such disk found around any star.

Even this much-studied star turned out to be different from how it looks. Vega spins once in about 16 hours, compared with roughly 25 days for the Sun. The fast spin makes its equator bulge, so its equatorial radius is about 19 percent larger than its polar radius. We happen to see it almost from above one pole, which is why it looks perfectly round.

The constellation in depth

Lyra is small enough to cover with a hand, yet the zero-magnitude star Vega makes it easy to spot in the summer sky. In Greek myth it is the lyre of the musician Orpheus, who went down to the underworld to bring back his dead wife and moved its ruler with his playing.

Four stars next to Vega form a small parallelogram, the body of the instrument. Epsilon Lyrae, close to Vega, is known as the Double Double: a telescope shows two pairs of stars, and each pair splits again into two. Between the two lower stars of the parallelogram lies the Ring Nebula, M57, a shell of gas thrown off by an ageing Sun-like star. In a telescope it looks like a small smoke ring.

In East Asia Vega is the Weaver Girl. It faces Altair, the Herdsman, across the Milky Way in Aquila. The story of the two lovers meeting once a year on a bridge of magpies, on the seventh night of the seventh month, comes from these two stars. On a summer night they can be seen overhead with the Milky Way running between them.

Vega is also a future pole star. Earth's axis slowly traces a circle, like the axis of a spinning top, taking about 26,000 years to go round once. The point in the sky it aims at moves with it. In about 12,000 years the north celestial pole will lie near Vega, and Vega will serve as the North Star.

Frequently asked

When can I see Lyra?

Lyra is best seen in summer.

What is the brightest star in Lyra?

The brightest star in Lyra is Vega, at magnitude 0.

In one line, what is Lyra?

Constellations — A small constellation that still stands out overhead on summer nights.

Related

Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.