The star rotates quickly, and this gives the star an oblate shape where it is flattened towards the poles. It is an A-type main-sequence star with 1.8 times the mass of the Sun and 11 times its luminosity. It is one of the three stars of the Summer Triangle, along with Vega and Deneb. Its name comes from the Arabic phrase al-nasr al-tair, meaning "the flying eagle". α Aql (Altair) is the brightest star in this constellation and one of the closest naked-eye stars to Earth at a distance of 17 light-years.Notable features Stars Īnimation fading-in of Aquila, Delphinus, Sagitta, and the summer Milky Way as seen in Dark-sky preserve Westhavelland The Greek Aquila is probably based on the Babylonian constellation of the Eagle, but is sometimes mistakenly thought as a seagull which is located in the same area as the Greek constellation. Hevelius determined 23 stars in the first and 19 in the second. Ptolemy catalogued 19 stars jointly in this constellation and in the now obsolete constellation of Antinous, which was named in the reign of the emperor Hadrian (AD 117–138), but sometimes erroneously attributed to Tycho Brahe, who catalogued 12 stars in Aquila and seven in Antinous. Aquila is also associated with the eagle that kidnapped Ganymede, a son of one of the kings of Troy (associated with Aquarius), to Mount Olympus to serve as cup-bearer to the gods. ![]() It is often held to represent the eagle which held Zeus's/Jupiter's thunderbolts in Greco-Roman mythology. 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 now one of the 88 constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. It had been earlier mentioned by Eudoxus in the fourth century BC and Aratus in the third century BC. ![]() The constellation Aquila as it can be seen by the naked eye.Īquila was one of the 48 constellations described by the second-century astronomer Ptolemy.
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