A surprising mix of objects is offered by Vega and its surrounding field. Vega is a magnificent ice-blue star of magnitude 0. Next to Vega, at a distance of 1.7° east-north-east, you’ll find the famous Double-Double : Epsilon Lyrae. If you care to try, Epsilon Lyrae can be split with the naked eye. The primaries are 208 arc seconds apart. A telescope is needed to separate Epsilon Lyrae into four members. Another double is Zeta Lyrae, one of the corners of the lyre, at 1.9° southeast of Vega. Zeta’s members are 44” apart and they can be separated with a pair of binoculars. (Zeta's members showed a better separation than displayed in the low-resolution sketch.) From Zeta, it’s a little star hop to the other corner of the lyre : Delta Lyrae. Delta Lyrae is a colorful double star too, and can be clearly split with binoculars. (I have not noticed the colors of this pair, but I rarely do notice colors.) This nice double is also the brightest member of the scattered open cluster Stephenson 1. About 8 stars can be seen with binoculars in this loose gathering.
All these objects can be observed in the same field of view, and they offer a beautiful sight.

Site : Bekkevoort, Belgium
Date : June 9, 2008
Time : around 23.30UT
Binoculars : Bresser 8x56
FOV: 5.9°
Filter : none
Mount : Trico Machine Sky Window
Seeing : 2,5/5
Transp. : 3.5/5
Nelm : 5.3
Sketch Orientation : N up, W right.
Digital sketch made with Photo Paint, based on a raw pencil sketch.

(Note: if the sketch does look too dark on your monitor, try to darken the room.)