Lyra is a very old constellation, known for centuries before the ancient Greeks.  Even though the constellation is small, it is very conspicuous and is graced by the 5th brightest star in the sky, Vega.  History suggests that the constellation was originally associated with a vulture and later with a harp or lyre.  

Lyra is a spring constellation which is very easy to find: first by the brilliant magnitude zero Vega and, then, by the almost perfect parallelogram (longer in the southerly direction than wide) of magnitude 3.5 to 4 stars.  The Lyre culminates at 9 pm late in August.  For northern observers, the constellation is nearly overhead at culmination.  Vega is a blue-white star similar in most respects to Sirius in Canis Major.  Due to precession of the Earth's axis, Vega was the pole star 12,000 years ago and will be again in 14,000 years.  Vega is one of the three stars that makes up the "Summer Triangle".  The other two are Deneb (Cygnus) and Altair (Aquila).

The showpiece deep sky object in Lyra is the "Ring Nebula" (M57, NGC 6720).  The object is a planetary nebula (a ring of gas ejected from a dead stellar core) which looks like a smoke-ring against a dark sky backdrop.  A second showcase item is the famous "Double-Double" multiple star system, Epsilon-Lyrae.  Through a small telescope -Lyr is easily resolved into 2 stars.  With larger telescopes, each component in the binary is resolved into its own binary.  All four stars in the multiple system are nearly the same color and magnitude.  Lyra is constellation not to be overlooked.