Attached are two pictures I’ve taken of the night sky. One is a
wide angle picture of the constellation Lyra and the other is a
close-upof the Ring Nebula Lyra constellation picture was taken
with a 35mm camera lens and the Ring Nebula picture was taken
through a telescope. The constellation Lyra can be found nearly
straight up inthe sky after dark this time of year. Vega is the
brightest star in the constellation Lyra and is the fifth
brightest star in the sky. Vega’s brightness makes it easy to
find Lyra. Give it a try on the next clear night. Vega is 25
light years away, has a mass two times that ofour Sun, and is
over 40 times brighter. But our Sun will shine 10 times longer
than Vega. Vega will fuse all of the hydrogen in its core long
before our Sundoes. When it runs out of hydrogen, about 400,000
years from now, Vega will swell into a red giant star and
violently throw off half of its mass out into space. All that
will remain of the once brilliant Vega will be a small white
dwarf star about the size of