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your location on the globe. The Lyrids are generally a modest shower, offering perhaps 10 to 20 meteors per hour in a dark, moonless sky. What, no meteors? No problem. Use your time outdoors to check out the constellation Lyra the Harp.
• The chart at the top of this page shows the constellation Lyra the Harp, radiant point for the Lyrid meteor shower. If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, Lyra rises over your north-northeastern horizon around 10 p.m. tonight. What is a radiant point? If you see a meteor tonight, you can trace its path backwards to find that it radiated from the constellation Lyra. Yet you don't have to know how to identify Lyra - or even know its direction in the sky - to see a meteor in this annual shower. Meteors often don't become visible until they are 30 degrees or so from their radiant point. In other words, the meteors will appear in any and all parts of the sky after Lyra ascends over the horizon in late evening.
• It's fun to find a meteor shower's radiant point, though, and Lyra is easy to spot. The constellation Lyra is easy to see because it's small and compact. Many people see it as a little triangle set on top of an oblique parallelogram.
• If you're standing out there looking, you might also try checking out some of the stars in Lyra. The constellation is dominated by the brilliant star Vega. Vega is sometimes called the Harp Star.
• Vega is the Harp Star
• This tiny but prominent constellation represents a lyre, an ancient musical instrument that is essentially a small harp. In Greek mythology, Lyra represents the lyre or harp of the musician Orpheus. It was said that when Orpheus played this instrument, neither mortal nor god could turn away.
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