Look up.
The Scorpion is climbing.
For stargazers hunting for how to identify Scorpius this summer, the answer is simple: look south. Low down. Very low down.
Orion is heading out. The Hunter is packing his bow. When Scorpius rises, his mythical nemesis has already set. They never meet in the sky. This celestial dodgeball keeps them on opposite sides of the dome.
If you are in the UK, tracking this zodiacal constellation is a test of patience. It never fully clears the horizon. It hangs there. A faint, jagged shape near the edge of the visible world. But the effort pays off if you find the heart.
The Moon’s Red Neighbor
This week’s chart points to London, 11pm, July 24. The moon is waxing gibbous, bright and demanding. It sits right next to Antares.
That red-orange dot is the prize.
Antares means “rival of Mars”. The name sticks because of the color. It glows with a deep, ruby heat. In mythology, this was no accident. The scorpion stung Orion. Now the scorpion’s heart beats in the same sky as its victim, just not at the same time.
But the color lies. Or rather, the atmosphere distorts it. From Britain, Antares often twitches and scintillates. You aren’t seeing the star’s true, steady burn. You are looking through miles of turbulent air near the horizon. The atmosphere acts like a lens. It scrambles the light. The star shivers.
Peck at it through the haze. Wait for the air to settle.
A Dying Giant
What you are looking at is a monster.
Antares is a red supergiant. It is nearing the end of its life, blowing off its outer layers in a cosmic death rattle. It dwarfs our sun. Vastly. The scale is hard to comprehend until you realize this “rival” isn’t just matching Mars in color—it is outliving the solar system it surrounds.
The star’s color is striking, appearing like a ruby jewel, though atmospheric turbulence often makes it twinkle from northern latitudes.
Finding which constellation lies opposite Orion helps orient the rest of the sky. Once you lock onto that red pulse near the moon, the rest of Scorpius follows. The curved tail arcs upward. The claws point north. It’s a classic shape.
