Vega — Star in Lyra

Vega is the fifth brightest star in the sky at magnitude 0.03 and the brightest in Lyra. It is a white main-sequence star of spectral type A0V, located only 25 light-years from Earth with a luminosity about 40 times solar. Vega rotates extremely rapidly — at about 274 km/s at its equator — making it noticeably oblate. It was the first star beyond the Sun to be photographed (1850) and the first to have its spectrum recorded.

Vega is the brilliant blue-white star overhead during northern summer evenings, forming the brightest vertex of the Summer Triangle along with Deneb and Altair. It is unmistakable — look nearly straight up on summer nights from mid-northern latitudes. Vega is circumpolar from latitudes above 51°N. Best observed June through October.

The name Vega derives from the Arabic 'al-nasr al-waqi,' meaning 'the falling eagle.' It was the northern pole star around 12,000 BC and will be again around AD 13,700 due to precession. Vega served as the original reference star for the photometric magnitude system — it was defined as magnitude 0.00, and all other star brightnesses were measured relative to it.