Lyra

Lyra is a Northern Hemisphere constellation otherwise known as the Lyre. It is one of the 48 Greek constellations originally described by the 2nd century astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (Wikipedia). Lyra remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union (Wikipedia).

Lyra (abbrev. = Lyr; genitive = Lyrae) covers 286 square degrees or 0.69% of the celestial sphere making it the 52nd largest constellation. It contains 73 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 6.5, the brightest star being Vega. See the Lyra Star Chart for a figure illustrating this constellation including the identification of its brighter stars.

For more information see the entries for Lyra at Wikipedia and U. Wisconsin. For a chart of Lyra, see Lyr (IAU).

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