It's the unknown that makes us fear the night. As our ancient ancestors huddled around their fires and listened to the mysterious noises around them, they must have looked up at the stars with dread as well as awe. Death came unannounced from out of the night. No constellation elicits our animal fear of the night like Scorpius, the Scorpion. Scorpius is one of the few constellations that actually looks like the thing for which it is named.
Scorpions can be as short as an inch long, but their sting is deadly.
The head of the scorpion is a line of three stars close to each other farthest to the north. The stinger curves around like a fishhook to the east and then north again. From a rural observing sight, they should be just visible to the naked eye as small fuzzy patches. They resolve into many stars with a pair of binoculars. At the center of the scorpion's body is the star Antares, which looks like a shimmering drop of blood as it twinkles close to the horizon.