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The constellation Lyra is a small parallelogram with an extremely bright star Vega, alpha Lyrae, just off to the side. The constellation represents the musical instrument created by the god Hermes and eventually given to Orpheus, the musician of the Argonauts. Lyra's music would help nearby Hercules pass the time away. Vega is bright not only because is two and a half times as large as the Sun (by diameter); It is also a mere 23 light-years away from the Earth. Twenty three light-years is 128 trillion miles – just around the corner by celestial standards.
As mentioned previously, the celestial poles move around in a circle every 27,500 years. In another 12,000 years or so Vega will be the Pole star, just as it was about 15,000 years ago. Perhaps Vega’s role as hub of the ancient sky was the origin of its Assyrian name, "Dayan-same", Judge of Heaven, and the Akkadian "Tir-anna", Life of Heaven. Later on, the Romans used it to indicate the beginning of autumn. When they saw it setting early in the morning (most of the time Vega is above the horizon) they knew autumn had begun.
Vega is rich with double stars. Epsilon, delta and zeta Lyrae are all doubles that can be seen through binoculars. The double star epsilon Lyrae can be seen by anyone with sharp vision. With the aid of a telescope, one can observe that each of its two component stars is also a double star itself. All four stars have a magnitude ranging only from 5.1 to 6.0, but they are extremely close together.