The lovely figure of Lyra (the Lyre) is seen rising (north is to
the left) with brilliant
Vega up and to the left of a small parallelogram of fainter stars.
The eclipsing
double star Sheliak (Beta Lyrae) is the upper right-hand corner of the
parallelogram, while Sulafat is at the lower right hand corner. At
the lower left-hand corner is Delta (which is separated into Delta-2,
the brighter, and Delta-1); Zeta is just down and to the right of Vega.
Epsilon Lyrae, the famed double-double star, is down and to the left of Vega,
while R (13) Lyrae is the brighter star down and to the left of Epsilon.
Aladfar (Eta) is the left-hand star of the pair that lies down and to the
left of Delta. XY Lyr is immediately down and to the left of Vega.
Vega is at the northwestern apex of the
Summer Triangle.
Lyra is home to the famed Ring Nebula
(Messier 57), which lies between Sheliak and Sulafat. The constellation
also holds the globular cluster M56 (in the lower right hand corner)
and the famed variable RR Lyrae (near the lower left hand corner): see
the labelled image. The constellation lies in the western edge of
the Milky Way.
|
