Last week in Starwatch, I told you about the great Perseid meteor shower that continues this weekend, peaking late Saturday night and early Sunday morning. Earth is plowing into debris trail left in the wake of Comet Swift-Tuttle.

In the dark countryside, it's possible to see more than 50 meteors or “shooting stars” an hour, and even a good number in urban areas with limited light pollution. My advice for watching the Perseids, or any other meteor shower, is to lie back on the ground or a reclining lawn chair and roll your eyes around the sky.

Watching a meteor shower with family and friends is fun because you have many more eyes watching the big sky. The best time to watch the Perseids is between midnight and the start of morning twilight.

One of the great summer constellations over Butler is Scorpius the Scorpion, prowling just above the south-southwest horizon in the early evening. You certainly won't crane your neck to see it!

It's the tenth brightest constellation in the night skies and one of the few constellations that really looks like what it's supposed to be. Personally, I see Scorpius as “the giant fishhook.”

Most of Scorpius is easy to find, but its stinger can be challenging because it's so very low in the sky around here. You need a low, flat, treeless southern horizon to see the celestial stinger. Even then, it can be a bit difficult. Visibility is naturally hampered for stargazing that close to the horizon because you're forced to look through much more of Earth's blurring atmosphere.

Moderate to heavy light pollution and much humidity in the air add to the problem. If you're ever in the southern U.S., Scorpius will be much higher above the horizon, and you can get a much better look at it.

The brightest star in Scorpius is the bright brick-red star Antares at the heart of the beast. It's the brightest star in that part of the heavens. To the right of Antares, you'll see three dimmer stars in a more or less vertical row that make up the Scorpion's head.

To the lower left of Antares, look for the long curved tail of the scorpion. Antares has a definite reddish hue, demonstrating that stars come in different colors. They are not just little white lights in the sky.

A star's color tells us a lot about its nature. Bluish-white stars are the hottest; some have over 30,000-degree surface temperatures.

Reddish stars like Antares are much cooler. In fact, Antares is cooler than our sun, with a surface temperature close to 6,000 degrees. A thermometer plopped on the sun's outer layer would show around 10,000 degrees.

Antares' reddish hue is also reflected in its name. Antares is derived from the Greek language and means “rival of Mars” since it has the same ruddy tone as the planet Mars. You can easily confuse Mars and Antares with each other if you're new to stargazing.

There's no confusion between Mars and Antares when it comes to size. Mars is only about 4,000 miles across, a far celestial cry from Antares's over 600-million-mile diameter!

That's over 700 times the diameter of our sun. If Antares were at the center of our solar system instead of our sun, the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars would all be living in Antares.

There are many stories in lore and mythology about how Scorpius wound up as a constellation. The one I like is the Greek mythology story about how Zeus sent a giant Scorpion to kill the mighty hunter Orion to end an affair he was having with Zeus' daughter Artemis, the goddess of the moon.

Orion hunted by night and slept by day. While on his nocturnal hunting adventures, he was noticed and admired by Artemis as she dutifully led the moon across the sky. She would call down to the hunter, and they would have long-distance conversations.

As time passed, Artemis eventually joined Orion in his hunting excursions, ignoring her lunar duties. Zeus learned of his daughter's negligence and put a contract out a contract on Orion. He had his staff send a giant scorpion to sting and kill Orion during his daytime slumber.

When the fateful day arrived, the giant scorpion approached Orion. The ever-alert hunter woke up as the beast stirred the nearby brush. Orion shot up and bravely fought the scorpion with all his might, but eventually he was stung by the steroid-enhanced scorpion and died instantly.

That night, Artemis discovered her boyfriend's body and was filled with tremendous grief. She managed to compose herself and lifted Orion's body to the sky to transform it into the famous constellation we see during winter evenings.

Looking back down to Earth, she saw the giant scorpion not far from where she found Orion. She put two and two together and decided to get revenge. She dive-bombed the scorpion, picked it up, and flung it up into the opposite end of the sky, far from where her dead boyfriend was. That's why Orion and Scorpion are never seen in the sky at the same time. Orion prowls the winter skies, and Scorpius trolls the summer heavens. Orion won't get stung again!

Celestial Happenings on the Way: Make your plans for another tremendous solar eclipse across the U.S. next April 8. The wide band of totality will stretch from southern Texas to northern New England. We won’t see a total eclipse in Butler, but it’ll be close.

Well over 90% of the sun will be covered by the moon. It will be a total eclipse in extreme northeastern Pennsylvania around Erie. It’s worth traveling to see and then some!

Following the eclipse, in late April we have a pretty good chance of seeing a comet in the western sky after sunset. It may be bright enough to see with the naked eye, especially in the dark countryside.

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is now beyond the orbit of Mars but is headed in our general direction. Recently it erupted, and I was able to get a photo of it through one of my telescopes. Right now it resembles a horseshoe crab in the constellation Draco.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.