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Aquila



Aquila lies close to the celestial equator and is visible in the months around June. Aquila was one of the 48 constellations described by the second-century astronomer Ptolemy.

It is dominated by the bright star Altair, which forms one vertex of the Summer Triangle asterism and is the twelfth brightest star in the sky.

The Milky Way passes through the constellation and so it contains numerous open clusters, though they are not as rich as the vast clouds of stars visible to its north in Cygnus.

Aquila is depicted as an eagle, identified in Greek mythology. The eagle was associated with Zeus (Jupiter), either as a servant who carried Zeus’ messages down to humans on Earth or as a disguise taken by Zeus in order to avoid his wife Hera when he was up to some mischief. One story of Aquila’s service to Zeus was that of Ganymede, who was a very gentle, kind shepherd and the most handsome mortal the gods and goddesses had ever seen. One day, the great eagle Aquila swooped down from the sky and, landing near the startled Ganymede, told him that Zeus had sent him to carry Ganymede to Mount Olympus. And so, climbing up on the eagle’s broad back, Ganymede was taken up to Mount Olympus where he served the gods by bringing them water.

The constellation was also known as Vultur volans (the flying vulture) to the Romans, not to be confused with Vultur cadens which was their name for Lyra. It is often held to represent the eagle which held Zeus’s/Jupiter’s thunderbolts in Greco-Roman mythology.

The Indian constellation name for Aquila is ಗರುಡ (Garuda).

 

Aquila contains:
  • Stars
    • Altair (mag 0.9)
    • Tarazed (mag 2.7)
    • ζ-Aql (mag 3.0)
    • θ-Aql (mag 3.2)
    • δ-Aql (mag 3.4)
    • λ-Aql (mag 3.4)
    • Alshain (mag 3.7)
    • η-Aql (mag 4.0)
    • i-Aql (mag 4.0)
    • ε-Aql (mag 4.0)
    • l-Aql (mag 4.3)
    • ι-Aql (mag 4.4)
    • μ-Aql (mag 4.5)
    • ν-Aql (mag 4.7)
    • Libertas (mag 4.7)
    • 70-Aql (mag 4.9)
    • 69-Aql (mag 4.9)
    • κ-Aql (mag 4.9)
    • f-Aql (mag 5.0)
    • 4-Aql (mag 5.0)
    • e-Aql (mag 5.0)
    • Y Aql (mag 5.1)
    • V1288 Aql (mag 5.1)
    • 37-Aql (mag 5.1)
    • O-Aql (mag 5.1)
  • Open Clusters
  • Globular Clusters
  • Galaxy

View Aquila in 3D


Source: Wikipedia, in-the-sky.org
Image Courtesy: Sky&Telescope & IAU, Illustration Images linked from Urania's Mirror on Wikmedia Commons by Sidney Hall

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