Altair: The Brightest Delta Scuti Star

We present an analysis of observations of the bright star Altair (alpha Aql) obtained using the star camera on the Wide-Field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) satellite. Although Altair lies within the delta Scuti instability strip, previous observations have not revealed the presence of oscillations. However, the WIRE observations show Altair to be a low-amplitude (Delta m < 1 ppt) delta Scuti star with at least 7 modes present.