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Aquila, like its nearby companion Cygnus, is another great bird of the sky. Although the stars of Aquila form a shape similar to Cygnus, stretched out wings from a body represented by a line, I find it much easier to identify it by three of its brighter stars in a short and very straight line. The middle of these three stars, alpha Aquilae or Altair, which means bird in Arabic, is an apex of the Summer Triangle.
In astrology, Altair was considered a mischief-maker and a foretoken of danger from reptiles. (The last fact was taken from Richard Hinckley Allen's "Star Name – Their Lore and Meaning", in case you think I’m making this up.) The Aquila constellation was not only known as the eagle by the Greeks, but also the Romans, Persians, Arabs and Jews, while the Sumerians called it the Great Wind.
Even though Aquila is within the Milky Way, it contains almost no double stars. Star 57 is a challenge for binocular users. Its two component stars have magnitudes of only 5.8 and 6.5 and furthermore, are extremely close together.