Epsilon Lyrae is the famous Double Double star
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Epsilon Lyrae (ε Lyrae), also known as the Double Double star, is full of surprises. Through binoculars, what appears as one star to the unaided eye resolves into two. Through a telescope, each star in that pair resolves into two again, making four stars.
And in the mid-1980s, astronomers detected a fifth star in the system. Bound together by gravity, these five stars appear as one to our unaided eyes. Your support = more science, more stars, more wonder.
Donate to EarthSky and be part of something bigger. Epsilon Lyrae is wonderfully easy to find. That’s because it’s near the bright star Vega.
Vega lies in the distinctively parallelogram-shaped constellation Lyra the Harp. But it’s probably more recognizable as the brightest star in the famous Summer Triangle asterism. And it’s the 5th brightest star in the sky.
When you find Vega, you know that Epsilon Lyrae is near. The gap between the two only amounts to the width of your little finger with your arm outstretched towards them. Look at the chart below to see in which direction Epsilon Lyrae lies from Vega.
Although Vega and Epsilon Lyrae appear close together in the sky, they really aren’t. They simply appear that way along our line of sight. Astronomers have determined that Vega is some 25 light-years away.
And Epsilon Lyrae is more than six times farther, at about 162 light-years distant. From mid-northern latitudes, Epsilon Lyrae and its constellation Lyra the Harp are visible for at least part of the night all year round. Epsilon Lyrae graces the night sky from dusk until dawn on summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere.
It’s high overhead on northern autumn evenings. In northern winter, this star appears both in the northwest sky after dusk, and in the northeast sky before dawn. When northern spring arrives, Epsilon Lyrae rises before midnight, and shines for rest of the night.
Those at mid-southern latitudes can see Epsilon Lyrae low in the north during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. There are many multiple star systems in the sky. But Epsilon Lyrae is special because it’s so easy to find, and so satisfying to resolve as a double star through binoculars.
And in a telescope, you can enjoy viewing them as a pair of binary stars!
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