Star
Vega
Also known as ALPHA LYRAE · AL NASR AL WAQI · WAKI
The summer beacon, future pole star.
Visible tonight?
Below horizon · rises 07:30
- Rises
- 07:30
- Transit
- 15:54
- Sets
- 00:19
Fifth-brightest star in the night sky. Will replace Polaris as the north star around the year 13,727.
Observing
Anchors the Summer Triangle with Altair and Deneb. Almost directly overhead in northern summer.
Observing from Chitral
Passes within a few degrees of the zenith in summer from Chitral's latitude — the highest a first-magnitude star gets here, and a superb sight in dark valley skies as the anchor of the Summer Triangle with Deneb and Altair.
History & culture
The first star ever photographed (1850) and the original zero-point of the magnitude system.
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See also
Altair
The flying eagle — fastest-spinning bright star.
Red Giant
A bloated, cool, ageing star.
Blue Giant
A massive, very hot luminous star.
Blue Supergiant
A hot, massive, ferociously luminous star.
Red Dwarf
The most common — and longest-lived — kind of star.
Symbiotic Star
A close binary of a red giant and a hot compact star.