Science & history · Constellation guide
Lyra, the lyre
Lyra is small but easy to find, because it holds Vega, the fifth-brightest star. Beside Vega a little figure of fainter stars makes the frame of the lyre.
About this picture
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC. Constellation figures based on those developed for the IAU by Alan MacRobert of Sky and Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott and Rick Fienberg). NASA's page (opens in a new tab).
The map is a composite of 1.7 billion catalogued stars, not a photograph from one place: it shows stars far too faint for the eye, and no weather, Moon or city light. It is drawn here in this chart's projection, with each star where it was in 2000; the fastest-moving bright star has shifted about a minute of arc since, far less than a pixel here.
How to spot it: Brilliant Vega, with a small lyre of fainter stars beside it. Source (opens in a new tab)
The lyre of Orpheus
A small constellation with a big star, named for the first lyre in Greek myth.
Ridpath (opens in a new tab) describes Lyra as small but prominent, marked by Vega, the fifth-brightest star in the sky. It is only the 52nd constellation by size.
In Greek myth this is the lyre of the musician Orpheus, the first lyre ever made (opens in a new tab): Hermes made it from a tortoise shell and strung it with seven strings, as many as the Pleiades.
Sources for this section Ian Ridpath, Star Tales: Lyra (opens in a new tab)
How to find it
Find Vega, the brightest corner of the Summer Triangle, and the lyre hangs beside it.
Vega is the brightest of the Summer Triangle's three stars (opens in a new tab); the small frame of the lyre hangs beside it, with Sheliak and Sulafat (opens in a new tab) forming its bottom.
By this site's calculation (opens in a new tab), Lyra stands about 85° up in the south at its highest from 40°N, almost straight up, but only about 20° up in the north from 35°S; it is highest at about 9 p.m. local time in mid-August.
Sources for this section Kat Troche (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), Summer Triangle Corner: Altair, NASA Night Sky Network (opens in a new tab); NASA Hubble, Messier 57 (the Ring Nebula) (opens in a new tab); Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit & Warren 1991), as computed by this site's star engine (opens in a new tab)
The Ring Nebula
Between two of the lyre's stars lies the glowing shell of a dying star.
About halfway between Sheliak and Sulafat lies the Ring Nebula, M57 (opens in a new tab), a planetary nebula about 2,000 light-years away, discovered in 1779, at magnitude 8.8.
A planetary nebula has nothing to do with planets. NASA explains (opens in a new tab) that when a low-mass star nears the end of its life its outer layers blow away into an expanding cloud of gas and dust, leaving the core behind as a white dwarf; M57 is one such shell.
How to see it It is easy to find (opens in a new tab) between those two stars, but it takes a moderately sized telescope to show it as a ring.
Sources for this section NASA Hubble, Messier 57 (the Ring Nebula) (opens in a new tab); NASA Science, Star Basics (opens in a new tab)
Where on Earth, and when
The whole key pattern rises from anywhere north of about 51°S.
South of about 57°S, none of it rises.
North of about 57°N, the whole key pattern never sets.
Its middle climbs at least 20° high, the finder's threshold for a suggestion, from anywhere north of about 35°S.
It is highest in the evening sky, at about 9 p.m. local time, in mid-August, from either hemisphere, wherever it rises. With daylight saving time, that is nearer 10 p.m. on the clock.
Worked out by this site from the Bright Star Catalogue, for a flat, clear horizon. Hills, buildings, haze and city light all cut into this; the air also lifts objects near the horizon by about half a degree. For your own place and night, use the sky finder.
Sources
- History Ian Ridpath, Star Tales: Lyra (opens in a new tab) for the figure, its size and the myth · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Kat Troche (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), Summer Triangle Corner: Altair, NASA Night Sky Network (opens in a new tab) for the Summer Triangle · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy NASA Hubble, Messier 57 (the Ring Nebula) (opens in a new tab) for the Ring Nebula · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy NASA Science, Star Basics (opens in a new tab) for what a planetary nebula is · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit & Warren 1991), as computed by this site's star engine (opens in a new tab) for its height from 40°N and 35°S, and best month
