LYRA
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LYRA |
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Lyra, the Lyre, is one of the most conspicuous constellations of the summer. It is dominated by first magnitude star Vega, the 21st brightest star. The star, featured in the film 'Contact' as the source of the first extraterrestrial message, is actually an unlikely candidate for extraterrestrial life. It lies just 25 light years away, relatively close, and is of spectral type A0V and of luminosity 47 times the sun. The star has a magnitude 9.5 companion some 60"' away. Vega is one of the 'summer triangle' stars, together with Deneb in Cygnus and Altair in Aquila. Lyra is on th edge of the Milky Way, thus is not known for its galaxies, which tend to be obscured by galactic dark matter. The most famous object in Lyra is probably the Ring Nebula, M57, a nice bright object visible in most scopes as a fuzzy ring. Large scopes are needed to see the mag 14 central star. Other objects worth a look are the globular cluster M56, also a bright and easy object and the loose Open Cluster Steph 1 around the wide double star delta (at the top left corner of the trapezium of stars). The open cluster NGC6791 can be difficult to find, as it has no bright stars and is more like a loose Globular Cluster than an Open Cluster. The only galaxy of note is the less than impressive NGC6703, a magnitude type S0 galaxy, looking like a faint fuzzy blob in most scopes.
