Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, July 2nd.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 29 minutes, setting at 9:31.   The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 2:45 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 6:02.

High in the east at 11 p.m. can be found a bright star just above a small, narrow, but very distinctive parallelogram of stars.  They are the stars of the constellation Lyra the harp.  The bright star is Vega the 5th brightest night-time star.  To the Romans the star Vega represented a falling eagle or vulture.  Apparently they never made the distinction between the two.  It is a pure white star and serves as a calibration star for color and brightness.  The harp, according to Greek mythology, was invented by the god Hermes.  The form of the harp in the sky, is as he had invented it: by stretching strings across a tortoise-shell.  Hermes gave it to his half-brother Apollo, who in turn gave it to the great musician Orpheus.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Lyra as a tortoise-shell harp. Created using Stellarium and free clip art.

Annotated Lyra:

Magnified view of Lyra. Created using Stellarium.