STARS AND CONSTELLATIONS

In the northern evening sky lies the Summer Triangle, composed of three stars. The bottom two are Vega (Alpha (a) Lyrae) in Lyra (left) and Deneb (Alpha (a) Cygni) in Cygnus (right). At the top is Altair (Alpha (a) Aquilae) in Aquila, with the names relating to eagles. However, Altair, along with two flanking naked-eye stars, was also part of the Tarazed asterism, from the Persian ‘the beam of the scale’. Tarazed (Gamma (g) Aquilae) is now the name of the group’s (lower) northern member.