Pathfinders: How to Effectively Praise

      “Fathers, provoke not your children, lest they be discouraged.” Colossians 3:21

The modern world embraces self-esteem as the end-all/be-all of child-rearing goals. Convinced that poor self-esteem is the cause behind our children's rebellion and misbehavior, a generation of parents have poured praise on their children and have succeeded in producing a crop of what many observers have called "precious snowflakes" - spoiled bratty kids who expect the world to heap approval on them as a right rather than something one earns.

As youth leaders, we have a solemn responsibility to guide children toward responsible adulthood. We are called to walk the narrow line between lifting up children's spirits and indulging their worst impulses.  So do we do that by giving everyone a participation trophy and eliminating any recognition of hard work and effort so some kids don't feel inferior and have their self-esteem damaged?

I used to work with emotionally disturbed, mentally ill and abused kids. Many of them were seriously damaged. Most had virtually no self-confidence or self-esteem. My primary job there as a recreation therapist, a vocational counselor and equestrian therapist was to help build up the ability of children whose spirits had been crushed. These kids were like abused animals, lashing out at everything and everyone that got close to them.

It was at this time I found a wonderful book by a psychologist named "Haim Ginott" called "Between Teacher and Child".  He also wrote a companion book for parents called "Between Parent and Child." The new version was updated by his daughter and I haven't read it, but his earlier book was really a departure from the loosey-goosey and ultimately disastrous child-rearing philosophy of Dr. Spock.  Ginott talks about how to:

• Discipline without threats, bribes, sarcasm, and punishment
• Criticize without demeaning, praise without judging, and express anger without hurting
• Acknowledge rather than argue with children's feelings, perceptions, and opinions
• Respond so that children will learn to trust and develop self-confidence

One of Ginott's most powerful techniques for engaging children is a simple principle for praising a child effectively. Too often we think we can praise kids by telling them things like "You are a great musician" when they bang out a song on the piano. We hang their crayon artwork on the fridge and proclaim, "You are a great artist!"  We praise a good grade on a test by telling them they are "...so smart!"  And we do surprising damage to our children by doing so.

How? When we label children great artists and students and musicians, we judge them, something even Scripture tells us we are told not to do. The exhortation, "Judge not that ye be judged" doesn't just apply to negative judgment. "Praise, done lazily by applying labels, is ineffective at best and damaging at worst. You don't full kids. If you tell a child he is a good boy, he knows better. He knows you are a liar because he knows what ungood things he sometimes does.

A teacher once decided she was going to change her unruly class's behavior by building their self-esteem.  She walked into her classroom and started her class by telling her kids she knew it was going to be a "great day" because all the children in her classroom were all "good boys and girls". The classroom erupted. It was the worst day she'd had in her career.

So why would that happen? It's because when we lazily label a child a good something or other, we tell the child we expect that they will always be good at whatever it is we are praising them for. Many times, children will try to prove you are wrong. Then they don't always have to meet the perfect standards you evidently expect of them.  God showed us that with the children of Israel who thought they'd show God they were good enough to please Him.

When we praise children (and adults for that matter), says Ginott, we should avoid labels and instead tell the child what you like about what they have done. Even better, tell them how what they have done pleases you. Kids want to please grownups. The secret is to give them praise so that they know how to please you. They don't know. Targeted praise like this is like catnip to tabby cat. Once children know what gets them your approval, they will repeat this behavior over and over.

Let me tell you a true story that illustrates the power of targeted praise. This is one of the first times I tried Ginott's targeted praise technique. I worked with emotionally disturbed children who were really messed up. Most had concurrent diagnoses of mental illness, abuse, neglect and developmental disability. We were experimenting with an art therapy program. We later hired an artist to run it, but at first I did the art classes.

There was this one little girl who had a history of abuse and neglect. She didn't trust anyone and had difficulty bonding with adults in particular. During her first art therapy class, she was fascinated with the marker pens. She worked at her table for quite a while. I saw her jump up after a while and come to me with her paper in her hand. She presented me with a picture that was light blue on the top half and dark blue on the bottom half.

I was stumped as to how to praise the little girl. You don't use empty praise like "You're a great artist." (I'd just finished Dr. Ginott's book so I knew that kids don't fall for that). So I told her, "Hmmm. It's a shade of light blue and on the bottom it's a darker blue. I like those colors."

She immediately jumped to my aid. "That's the sky," she said pointing to the light blue, "And that's the water," she explained proudly.

"Oh," I sighed, relieved to know what the painting was about, "You have done a seascape." The little girl lit up like a Christmas tree and dashed off to do another picture. The next picture was the same blue on blue with a little green pyramid shaped thing in the boundary between the two blue spaces.

"An island!" I said, hopefully. She gave me a big grin and dashed off again. The next one had a little house on it. The one after that had a palm tree. Then the house gained a chimney, then the sky gained a cloud and the sun. Every time I mentioned the new addition, it remained in the next picture. If I forgot to mention the new addition - the bird she added or a window on the house, it got left out the next thing. The little girl is now 40 years old and lists me as her Father on Facebook.

Another of my helpers had a similar, but opposite experience with an young autistic boy in the class. The boy struggled to make a very detailed and actually quite stunning picture. When he showed it to his counselor, the counselor went for the easy praise. "You're a really wonderful artist, Chris," he said holding up the picture for everyone to see. Horrified, Christ snatched the picture back, crumpled it into a ball and threw away the evidence. He refused to do any more pictures. That one picture was evidence that he was a "great artist" and Chris knew that he wasn't always able to do work that was that good. So he shied away from even trying lest his counselor find out he wasn't a "wonderful" artist. 

You may not always see an immediate reaction from your kids when you use empty praise like that. Emotionally disturbed kids react much more quickly and demonstrably than normal kids do. Tell a regular kid that he or she is a great baseball player or a brilliant mathematician and they may smile at the praise, but they soon figure out you're blowing them off with the easy compliment.

Empty praise tells a child nothing about what pleases you. If he cleans his room and you tell him he's a "good boy", it says nothing about what he did right.  Try these techniques when you praise and you'll tell the child what he or she is doing that pleases you. Remember the child want to please you. When you give only empty praise and the only time you are specific is when he is doing something wrong, the the only thing the child learns is how to disappoint you. Try this:

1. Find specific things that the child does that please you.
2. Tell the child how what he or she has done pleases you.
3. Tell the child how what he or she has done helps you.
4. Show the child you appreciate what he or she has done.
5. Avoid telling the child what you think he or she is. 
6.  

When you are working with your Pathfinders, remember to keep your eyes open. Know what they are doing, especially when they don't think you are watching. When you let them know specifically what they did and why it was a good thing,  and what it meant to you, it's a very powerful thing. It lets the child know how to get your approval.  Most of the reason we get into trouble with kids is we aren't very good about telling them in detail what we want from them.  Oh, we're very good at telling them what they do wrong, which may be why they repeat that sort of behavior more frequently than they do the kind of behavior we want.

Instead of "Good job!" tell a kid "Wow, this floor really shines!" (if the floor really does shine). Show them something that they did well, let them know it pleases you, and they will repeat it. Don't tell a kid, "You're a great helper!"  Instead tell them, "Thanks, that really helped me get done with my work." The child then understands why you are pleased with them. You made it personal. 

If you're on a camping trip, pick out a group that did a good job pitching their tent. Walk around it, looking at the tent pegs, the tent poles and how they stowed their gear. Comment on everything they did right. Mention if the pegs are driven in at the proper angle, if the poles are set squarely and secured, or if the inside of the tent looks neat. Before you know it other kids will ask you to look at their tents too. Make the same kinds of observations with all of your kids and pretty soon you'll have a crackerjack tent pitching crew as they compete to draw your praise for their work. And each time you praise a specific thing, you teach them what they did right. The others will watch and learn.

This way you don't have to teach by criticizing. You teach by praising. I've seen too many Pathfinder "leaders" who thought they were drill sergeants and who treated the kids as if they were a part of some kind of a paramilitary organization. The point of summer camp and Pathfinders is to teach kids practical and social skills by having fun. Robert Rider, president of the Oklahoma Conference taught me that you can save more young souls by showing kindness, by paying attention and by remembering what your job is, than you can by by barking orders.

I took those lessons with me to my later work as a teacher, as a recreation therapist with emotionally disturbed and mentally ill children, and as a community organizer working with bipartisan groups to help people in need. Our jobs as youth and Pathfinder leaders is to lead, not drive. We show kids the way, with kindness, humor and clear signals. We mark the trail for our young people to follow. We let natural consequences teach for us when they stray and we welcome them back when they return to us, even if they are a little battered for having gone off track.

God says that he will be our children's teacher (Isa. 54:13). Our job is to go before them and show by example what mere words can never teach.  Jesus said let your words be well chosen. He didn't lecture. He told stories and let his listeners draw their conclusions. We all learn like children for most of our lives. Children want to know what to do that will please us. Let's show them by telling them we notice when they do the right thing.

© 2017 by Tom King

   

Star Honor Series: Equipment

Screenshot from Stellarium program.

If you're doing a Star Honor class, here's a really great software program your kids can download onto their laptops and home computers. If you're looking for a good star/planetarium kind of software to help you find objects to look at through your telescope and to show the kids what stars and other objects are, let me highly recommend a free download called Stellarium. It's really an amazing little star-gazing program.

You can use this program to show your kids how to plan their star-gazing for each evening. By setting the time and the coordinates of the place you'll be setting up your telescopes and you can see what stars will be out that night. The thing tracks planets and even helps you find satellites and figures out when there will be meteor showers. 

Most of your kids know enough about computers to use the simple interface that Stellarium uses and it does come with a help utility that explains things.  If you can hook up your laptop to a projector, it also makes a great tool for showing your students where objects in the sky are. The projected image shows a very realistic night sky, just like the kids will be seeing when they go out with the telescopes. It will show you which direction in which to look for things you want to observe.

It's really a marvelous tool and best of all for your Pathfinder Club's budget - it's free!  You can't beat that with a stick!  Download it at:  http://www.stellarium.org/

Tom King
(c) 2015

Star Honor Series: Part 7 - Mounting Your Reflector Telescope on a Dobsononian Mount

In Part 5 and 6 of this series we built a Dobsonian Mount (right) and an unmounted reflector telescope. Now we get to put them together.   Here's what that process is going to look like.

First set the tilt box in the cradle on top of the pedestal. The mounting cradle should be lined with some kind of felt strips.  The pedestal is open under the tilt box which will allow the tilt box to sing all the way down so that the scope can point across a full range of motion from horizon to straight over head. 

Next, slide the tube into the open-ended tilt-pod mounting box. Move it back and forth so that it balances at the ears of the mounting box when the telescope is horizontal. If the scope feels loose, glue felt padding to the inside of the tilt box so the scope tube fits more tightly in the tilt-pod. The scope, if balanced properly should sit at any angle and rotate smoothly, without slipping once it's in place. that's really all there is to it. It should look like the picture below when you're done.  Finish by drilling a couple of holes through the top and bottom of the mount and through the scope. Measure the distance and drive a couple of screws through the holes to secure the scope. Be careful not to drive any screws through the optics inside the scope.

Setup: 

Next you need to collimate the telescope.  Adjust the primary mirror first by using the collimating screws on the bottom of the mirror mounting cell.  Look down the sonotube from the top the mirror and you'll see the image of the open end of the tube and your face looking back at you. You'll see the four spyder legs that hold the secondary mirror. criss-crossing the inside of the tube between you and the primary mirror. 

You want to center that image of the open top of the tube so that it will line up to give you a roughly centered image in the open telescope tube.  You do this by carefully loosening and tightening the screws below the primary mirror. If you force the screws you can crack your very expensive mirror.  

Once it looks close to centered, you need to adjust the secondary mirror to line up with the primary.  Look down the focuser tube. Further adjust the collimating screws until the secondary mirror is centered in the focuser tube. If you’ve got it right, your eye will appear in the center of the secondary mirror.

There are 3 screws through the primary
mounting plate which support the 
primary mirror as shown

Now, place the eyepiece in the focuser and test the optics by focusing on a distant object. You may need to fiddle with the collimating screws or the screws on the spyder legs of the secondary mirror. Once adjusted the telescope is ready for viewing. If you haven't mounted, the finder scope, it should be 90 degrees around the tube from the focuser, so that the finder is on top of the telescope tube. 
You'll need to line up the finder scope next.  It's best to do that in daylight. Roughly, line up the tube on a distant object and then look through the eyepiece with the lenses in place. Once you get centered on your target, check the lineup on the finder scope. Adjust the mounting screws so the cross-hairs on the finder line up precisely with your target.
Don't try to do this at night. Stars move and it's too hard to match the finder to the scope when the target is moving.

Be careful when you clean your lenses. Brush dust off the optics with a fine camel's hair brush or blower. Wiping your lenses with your shirt tail or even a hankie will scratch and dull lenses. 
Last Word: 

If you're building your own telescope, spend the bulk of your money on optics - a big mirror, eyepiece lenses and big focuser that will take 1 ¼ inch or 2 inch eyepieces. The larger lenses are way more comfortable for viewing and you can make your own eyepiece lenses. I made mine out of copper pipe and mounted the lenses in a PVC pipe cap slipped over a 2 inch pipe.  Works great and I got the lenses from an optical surplus. I got enough lenses to build 5 eyepieces for $25 and it came with the lens combinations for the various lenses packaged separately.

If you love star-watching, I highly recommend building your own telescope. It is a seriously cool project!

(c) 2015 by Tom King

Star Honor Series: Part 6 - Building a Reflector Telescope

John Dobson introduced his wonderful homemade low-cost, non-equatorial plywood telescope mount for large homemade reflector telescopes in the 1950s.  Telescope mounts can be as expensive as the telescopes themselves, if not more so. The simple Dobsonian mount was able to handle even relatively large telescopes is wonderfully cheap and works really well.

Having a cheap mount allows amateur astronomers to spend their money on larger, more expensive, high-quality scopes rather than on the mount. The design below is for a 10 inch “Dob” that will fit on the mount described in part 1 of this series. You can collect the parts for the scope on eBay and other online sites if you are patient. This can be a long term project for your Pathfinder club.

Here's what you need:

Materials:

Painted sonotubes.

• 12-inch tube about eight feet long. You can get a sonotube at a concrete supply store. They are used as forms for making concrete pillars.
• 10-inch telescope mirror
• 10-inch mirror mounting cell
• 10-inch Spider mount for the secondary mirror
• Secondary mirror
• 2 inch focuser
• Eyepiece
• 4 by 8 foot sheet of half inch plywood
• 1-inch screws, 1 box
• 2 old phonograph records
• 1 half inch carriage bolt, 3 inches long with nut and flat washer
• Felt strips

Tools:

• Drill and bits
• 2 inch drill hole saw bit
• Saber Saw
• Screwdrivers
• Scissors
• Wood glue

The Scope:

This will be a quick run-through of the process. You can find a more detailed description of the project with pictures and dimensions of things at this link to a blog of mine on another site. Here's a quick description of how to do this so you can get an idea of what all is involved.

Step 1

Cross section of mirror mount

Mount the telescope mirror first. It should come with a mirror-mounting cell that allows you to fix the mirror at the lower end of the you to adjust the angle of the mirror to line it up with the secondary mirror and eyepiece.  Follow the instructions that came with the cell.  Drill holes in the lower end of the Sonotube to match the mounting screws and screw the mount into the end of the tube.  Here's a more detailed description of the process. 

Step 2

Figure out the focal length of the mirror.  It will be in the specifications that come with your mirror.  Subtract 6 inches and the length of the focuser from the total focal length of the mirror. Measure from the center of the mirror up the side of the Sonotube.  Mark the side of the tube at the distance you computed above. Measure four more inches up the tube and cut off the rest of the Sonotube.  Hold the tube upside down while cutting so that the dust falls away from the mirror. 

Step 3

Mirror spider mount

Drill a 2-inch hole in the side of the tube at the mark you made on the side of the tube (the adjusted focal length).  Screw the spider mount for the secondary mirror so that the mounted mirror is directly below the 2-inch hole you just drilled.

Step 4

Screw the focuser assembly directly over the 2-inch hole in the tube. You will have to collimate (align) the optics so that the focuser lines up with the center of the secondary mirror. There should be detailed instructions that come with your optics for collimating the focuser. Once you've screwed down the focuser, put a low power eyepiece in the end of the focuser. Point the tube at something distinctive during the daylight and make sure you can focus on the object to make a sharp image. You may have to adjust the primary mirror a bit, but if you got the measurements right, it shouldn't take much. You also may have to adjust the angle of the main mirror to make sure the image is projected directly off the secondary mirror and through the secondary.

Step 5

Focuser

Next mount the finder scope a quarter of the way around the tube from where you mounted the focuser. You'll need to calibrate the finder scope during daylight so that the finder points at the same place in the sky that the telescope does. You can do this by pointing the scope at a small object a few hundred yards away and then lining up the finder scope to point it's crosshairs at the same object.  Your finder scope probably comes with instructions.

Now that you're done, the next thing we'll do is mount the tube in the Dobsonian Mount you built in Part 5 of this series. 

References:

Refracting finder scope

Here are some cool links to some other telescope building resources.

1. Mother Earth News: A Homemade Telescope 
2. Larry Brown: Homemade Astronomy
3. Scopemaking:  Plans for a Homemade Dobsonian Telescope
4. Howdy Ya Dewit:  A Homemade Telescope: A Quick Run-Through

© 2014 by Tom King 

Ministries: How to Wear Out a Bunch of Hyper Kids in 30 Minutes or Less

© 2013 by Tom King

The Fox & the Hounds

 I learned a variation of this game from a book called "New Games", a book of games designed to promote play without an over-emphasis on competition.  Now the game itself is plenty competitive, but because of the structure, it encourages cooperation at the same time it encourages individual effort. It can be fun for a group even if the kids in your group vary in size, strength and speed.

The game is based on the old playground game "Tag You're It".  In traditional tag there's something of a problem that every teacher who's ever used it runs into. Whoever is "It" is the center of attention. Now some people really like being center of attention, especially kids with poor self-esteem.  So rather than running away they fake stumbling or taunt the person who is "It" so that they can get caught and then they run around pretending to chase people but never quite catching them. This keeps the game focused on themselves and everybody eventually ends up standing around waiting for the your egotist to finally be shamed into catching somebody so the game can go on.

The Fox and the Hounds variant turns the structure upside down and effectively uses the desire to be center of attention into a tool for making kids run their hearts out.  Here's how it works.

Materials:

• Large relatively open playing field.  A wooded park area is best as the trees will break up the chase and give the fox a chance.

• A 3 to 4 foot long "tail" made of cloth or canvas.  A strip of fake fur made up to look like a bushy animal tail is the most effective type of tail. I keep one in my games bag at all time.

•  Whistle for the referee. The whistle is useful for stopping the action when the tail is grabbed and for getting the attention of kids who are getting over-eager (like the kid that picked up a fallen tree limb and decided that braining the fox might be an effective means of getting that tail).

Method:

1.  Explain the rules and the boundaries to the kids.  Boundaries can be arbitrary, but should all be within clear eyesight of where the referee (and his whistle) is standing.
2. One player is selected as "It" or "The Fox". Let slip that in this game the fox is "It". It will make being the fox more desirable to the egotists who are usually the ones you want to tire out.  The Fox must tuck six inches of the tail into his belt or the back of his pants - enough to hold the tail securely, but no enough to carry the pants down to his ankles when someone jerks the tail loose.
3. The remaining players are designated "The Hounds".  The hounds must do two things.  First, they must chase the Fox and try to pull off his tail.  Second, they must bark and bay like hunting hounds while chasing the Fox.
4. At the start of each round, the Fox is given a head start before the hounds are turned loose.  The hounds must then chant the fox hunting song and when they are done, they may all take off after him.  The song goes like this:
   
         A hunting we will go, A hunting we will go
           Heigh, ho, the derry 'o, A hunting we will go
         We will catch a fox, We'll put him in a box
           We will pull his furry tail and then we'll let him go.  
   
   
   A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
   Heigh ho, the dairy-o, a hunting we will go
   A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go
   We'll catch a fox and put him in a box
   And then we'll let him go
   Read more at http://www.lyrster.com/lyrics/a-hunting-we-will-go-lyrics-children.html#ajoC4otcRv7ipgtf.99
5. Whoever relieves the Fox of his tail becomes the new Fox and you start over with the chant to give him a head start.
6. The referee must watch the hounds.  Any who are not baying or barking like hounds are ineligible to catch the fox.  Advise the hounds to be sure and bark when grabbing the foxes tail.  It doesn't count if you forget till afterward.  The barking slows the hounds slightly because it takes some of the wind out of them.
   
7. The fox must not touch his own tail, shorten it or pull it out of reach with his hands.  Warn the fox not to take a loop around his belt to make it harder to pull the tail. It's a good way to get hurt by being pulled off your feet or slung into a tree or to lose your pants altogether.  The ref should check to see that the tail is removable with an ordinary tug. 

This game is exhausting. There are always plenty of egotists who want to be it, but in order to keep the coveted title of "Fox" the egotist must run like the wind because everybody is out to snag his tail. The game stays active because even if you have a fast fox, the hounds inevitably do what wolves do with their faster prey.  They simply take turns running the fox till he tires out and then they corner him and remove his tail.  If you catch the kids doing it, it's a good teachable moment to tell the kids that what they are doing is what wolves do to run down faster prey.  They take turns chasing the animal until he tires.  Chasing the animal in wide circles allows the other wolves to rest and pick up the chase with fresh wolves when the prey comes round again.


The game encourages the fox to run so he can keep the coveted tail and the hounds to pursue him in order gain the tail.  The kids will come up with some surprising pack hunting strategies all on their own, many of them just the sorts of strategies used by lions, cheetahs, wolves and hyenas. The kids inevitably run themselves to exhaustion in 20 or 30 minutes.  When they are all sprawled out on the grass gasping for air, it's a good time to go to campfire and then off to bed. They'll sleep pretty well that night, I promise you. The beauty is that you, the referee can handle the whole bunch while your fellow adults take a quick break AND you don't have to run around after the kids. The action circles you. I used to have this tall stump I liked to "referee" from. 


As I always say, "Old and crafty beats young and energetic every time!"


Tom King

Master Guide Secrets - Star Honor Part 5 - The Dobsonian Telescope Mount

Although not required by the basic Pathfinder Star Honor, building a telescope is a wonderful Pathfinder activity.  It can be a group project that adds a new and powerful telescope to the club's stockpile of equipment every time you do a star honor class.  If you treat the star honor like a real astronomy class, you'll not only get your Pathfinders a nice patch for their sash, but will encourage them to look up and see the stars which God has made. Some of the kids may even go on to make their own telescopes and pass their knowledge of the skies to the next generation of kids.

Having a nice big powerful telescope along on campouts gives kids something to do in the dark as well - at a time when kids tend to sneak off from the campsite to explore and get into mischief.  A row of telescopes acts as a magnet for restless minds, especially if you have a batch of interesting things to look at that will fire their imaginations.

First we're going to build the mount for the telescope.  The only part of the scope itself is the telescope tube. You'll have to decide what size mirror you are going to use first, select a mirror mount and measure the inside diameter of the tube.  You may want to go on to the second part of the series which I will have done hopefully next week and build the scope first.  I start with the mount first because it's inexpensive and gives you an idea how much you will have left in your budget to buy the lenses, mirrors, mounts and spotting scope - the heart of a good reflector telescope.

The design of this mount, designed by famous amateur astronomer, John Dobson, is simple, inexpensive to build and requires quite simple carpentry skills. It's made out of old LP records, plywood, some glue, felt and a couple of bolts. It's easy to use and comfortable to look through.

To look at the details of the design, follow this link to my Howdy Ya Dewit website.  Have fun. The design we will explore in these next three articles gives you a really fantastic telescope. I collected the parts for mine on eBay over several years of waiting interspersed by frantic bidding.  Someone gave me a six inch mirror and I now have the parts for a very nice six inch scope for under a hundred dollars total. You can't buy a scope of this quality for 5 times the price and it won't be half the fun to put together.

Master Guide Secrets - The Stars Part 4

Checking Out Scorpio

It's midsummer and Orion is pretty much invisible because it's on the daylight side of the Earth right now. But halfway around the sky you'll find Orion's nemesis a striking constellation visible in the south along the ecliptic (the sun's path through the sky) where all the other constellations of the zodiac are found.

Use this chart to find objects discussed below.

Scorpio.

Scorpio is one of the few constellations like the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper and the Southern Cross that actually looks a lot like its namesake. The long sweeping curved tail of the scorpion is clearly visible against the night sky throughout the summer. It looks like this:

Scorpio is Latin for scorpion, but not everyone sees a scorpion, probably because not every country has the nasty little critters. The Javanese people of Indonesia see a "brooded swan" (Banyakangrem) probably because Scorpio is higher in the sky and less "upside down.  In the islands of the South Pacific, which are also scorpion fee, it is also called Kalapa Doyong, meaning the "leaning coconut tree." In China the curved "tail" is part of a larger constellation called the "Azure Dragon".  In Hawaii, the distinctive hook-shaped arrangement of stars is known as Maui's fishhook after one of their demigods who was apparently partial to fresh-caught tuna.

Here's how Scorpio looks in mid-summer (without the red lines, of course)

It's easiest to see Scorpio in the summer.  In July you'll find it low in the southern sky at around 9 or 10 pm.  The constellation used to be bigger, but the Romans needed a sign of the zodiac for September, so they borrowed the "claws" of the Scorpion and designated the new constellation Libra. Most people still see the whole scorpion complete with claws, not realizing the Romans declawed it a couple of millennia ago.

The brightest stars in Scorpius include:

Antares & its companion

• Antares (α Sco) - Antares is a red supergiant, the 15^th or 16th brightest star in the sky depending on who you talk to.  It's magnitude is somewhere between 0.96 and 1.8. Antares is part of a binary system.  It has a faint supergiant companion star.  Antares is 883 times larger than our own sun. If you put Antares where the sun is, the surface would like somewhere in our asteroid belt.  Antares is 550 light years or 170 parsecs from the Earth.  It is 10,000 times brighter than the sun as well, so wear your shades if you plan to visit.

• β1 Sco (Graffias) - Beta Scorpii (β Sco, β Scorpii) is a multiple star system.  The Arabs called the star several names including Acrab, Akrab or Elacrab from the Arabic (العقرب‎) al-'Aqrab. In China it was known as 房宿四 (the Fourth Star of the Room).  Even with a small telescope you can see it as a binary star. This pair of stars (β1 and β2) are the most visible orbiting components in this system. β1 Scorpii, the brighter one is made up of β Sco A and β Sco B.  β Sco A is also a binary that can only be detected with a spectroscope.  β2 Scorpii meanwhile has two stars within it (β Sco C and β Sco E). β Sco E is also a binary that can only be detected with a spectroscope. There are six stars in the system. There used to be a D component, but the astronomers were wrong and they took it out, which is why there is no β Sco D and the names jump for β Sco C to β Sco E.  

• δ Sco (Dschubba) - It's name is from the Arabic jabhat, "forehead" (of the scorpion). It's also called Iclarcrau or Iclarkrav.  Whatever you call it, the star is at the forehead of the "scorpion" outline.  Dschubba or Delta Scorpii is unusual because it's near the ecliptic, so it is occasionally occulted (covered up) by the Moon and on rare occasions, by the planets. The sun covers it up as well, but you can't see that from here on Earth.  Delta Scorpii (δ Sco) is part of one of the closes "associations" of massive stars to the sun called the Upper Scorpius Subgroup (astronomers come up with such romantic names for things).  The USS contains thousands of young stars, kind of like Woodstock in the sky. It's magnitude changes because δ Sco has irregular outbursts that throw off luminous gases from its equatorial region. Like other stars in the region, it also has a companion that causes the star to flare up. Dschubba (δ Sco) has a second class B companion star that comes as close to it as Mercury does to our Sun. This companion star orbits δ Sco every 20 days in a wildly eccentric orbit that takes it close in about once in ten years. It also has a possible third and fourth companion star ranging out to about twice the distance from the main star

• θ Sco (Sargas) - Theta Scorpii (θ Sco, θ Scorpii) was named Sargas by the ancient Sumerians and more prosaically by the Chinese as 尾宿五 (Mandarin: wěi xiù wǔ) or the Fifth Star of the Tail.  Sargas is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, located about 300 light years (90 parsecs) from our sun.  Sargas is a bright yellow giant star, about 5.7 times larger than the Sun and 1834 times as bright. An F-type star, Sargas is yellow-white and rotates so rapidly it is thicker at the equator than at the poles. Sargas has the distinction of being one of the stars on the flag of Brazil.

• λ Sco (Shaula) - Lambda Scorpii (λ Sco, λ Scorpii) comes it at number 2 (after Antares) as the second brightest star in Scorpius.  It's name, Shaula, comes from the Arabic الشولاء al-šawlā´ meaning the raised tail.  Again the pragmatic Chinese just call it 尾宿八 meaning "the Eighth Star of the Tail".  Located 702.1 light years from Earth, Shaula is actually a triple system.  It has two B-type stars and a pre–main sequence star.  The primary star is a beta Cephei variable star meaning its brightness changes.  All three stars lie in the same orbital plane so they were probably all created at the same time. Shaula is also on the flag of Brazil.

• ν Sco (Jabbah) – If you live on a planet in the Jabbah system, you probably wouldn't get much sleep.  Nu Scorpii (ν Sco, 14 Scorpii) is at least a quintuple, if not a sextuple star system. Nu Scorpii A and B are the brightest pair, being both spectral type B2 subgiants. Nu Scorpii C and D are fainter spectral type B8 and B9 main sequence dwarf stars. Nu Scorpii A is a spectroscopic binary with faint B-type companion star. Like  Since it is near the ecliptic, Nu Scorpii, like Dschubba, can be occulted by the Moon and rarely by the odd planet. Mercury occulted it in 1821 and will again on December 2, 2031. Venus clipped Jabba in December 1852 and will do so again on December 30, 2095. Neptune occulted it in 1808.  Nu Scorpii also bounces light of a nearby nebula - IC 4592 giving it a nice blue color.  Jabbah or ν Sco is called 鍵閉 by the Chinese or Jiànbì, meaning Door Bolt – something to do with Chinese asterism.  

• π Sco (Iclil) - Pi Scorpii is a triple star located some 590 light-years (180 parsecs) from the Earth. German astronomer Johann Bayer gave it the name Pi Scorpii in 1603. No one is sure, but he may have been hungry at the time.  It was first discovered to be a spectroscopic binary with two hot blue-white B-type main sequence stars rotating around each other. These two ahve a third smaller star orbiting around them at a distance.  Pi Scorpii is also part of the USS (Upper Scorpius subgroup) of the Scorpius-Centaurus Association. Whether it is a voting member or not is unknown.

• σ Sco (Alniyat) Sigma Scorpii (σ Sco, σ Scorpii) - Al Niyat, one of the brighter members of Scorpio, is roughly 696 light years (214 parsecs) from earth.  The brightest component of the system is a spectroscopic binary, σ Scorpii A, an evolved giant star.  The binary has never been successfully resolved with a telescope, but has been identified with a spectroscope through changes in their combined spectrum. A is 18 times larger than the sun and radiates 20,000 times the luminosity. It's a variable star whose temperature and brightness varies significantly. The other member of the Al Niyat pair, σ Scorpii B, is a main sequence star that orbits at about four times the distance from the sun to Neptune.  A third member of the system, σ Scorpii C orbits even farther out taking a hundred years to complete an orbit. The final member, σ Scorpii D is a B9 dwarf star orbiting even farther out. The Al Niyat is also liley a part of the Upper Scorpius Subgroup. 

• U Scorpii (U Sco) -  U Sco is one of only 10 known stars that are recurring novae.  U Sco is located near the northern edge of Scorpio and normally has a relatively faint magnitude of 18.  In successive outbursts in 1863, 1906, 1936, 1979, 1987, 1999, and 2010, U Sco reached a magnitude of 8.  Scientist haven't been successful at predicting U Sco outbursts yet, but expect the next one to happen between 2018 and 2022.

Scorpio also has four deep space objects that were included in Charles Messier's early catalog of nebula and galaxies.  They were:

M4 (NGC 6121)

• M4 (NGC6121) – NGC 6121 is the nearest known globular cluster to the Sun.  Discovered by Philippe Loys de Chéseaux in 1746, M4 lies in Scorpio about 1.3° west of Antares.  If the sky is dark it can just barely be seen the naked eye if you have good eyesight.  Partially obscured by dust in the galactic plane it looks slightly red as a result.  It looks like a ball of stars with a unique central bar. The Hubble recently detected a planetary system within the cluster.

• M6 (NGC6405) – Called the Butterfly Cluster this open cluster of stars vaguely resembles a

  

  The Butterfly Cluster

  butterfly in shape. First officially observed by Giovanni Battista Hodierna in 1654, the Butterfly cluster may have been seen by 1st century astronomer Ptolemy with his unusually acute eyesight while he was busy discovering its neighbour, the Ptolemy Cluster. The cluster was cataloged #6 by Charles Messier and contains hot, blue B type stars and a notable K type orange giant star that's a semi-regular variable.  Astronomers estimate its distance as somewhere around 1,600 light years from Earth.  With a magnitude 4.2, the star should be easy to spot just  above and slightly to the left of the "stinger" of Scorpio's tail.

The Ptolemy Cluster

• M7 (NGC 6475) -  The Ptolemy Cluster, as it has been known since it was first observed by Roman astronomer Ptolemy in 130 AD, is an open cluster of stars, located just below M6 and to the left of the Stinger in Scorpio's tail.  Astronomers with telescopes have counted some 80 stars in the cluster.  M7 is 980 light years from Earth.

 

M80

• M80 (NGC6093) --  M80 is a globular cluster located midway between Antares and Graffias. Even with an a amateur telescope, you can see M80 as a mottled ball of light.  It contains several hundred thousand stars and is one of the denser globular clusters in the Milky Way Galaxy.  In 1860, a nova within the cluster briefly outshined the entire cluster. 

You'll notice that Scorpio is located near the center of that bright hazy band of stars that cuts across the night sky in summer. Those stars are closer in toward the center of our galaxy which is why the look all packed together. When you look toward Scorpio you are looking toward the hub of the galaxy. Earth sits about 2/3 of the way out from the center of the galaxy (28,000 light years to be sort of precise) and 20 light years above the galaxy's equatorial plane within the "Orion" spiral arm. It is called that because the stars that make up the Orion constellation are all within that arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Scorpio is one of the easiest of constellations to spot.  Along with The Big Dipper, Orion, Cassiopeia, The Little Dipper, Canis Major and Minor and Taurus the Bull, they are among the easiest constellations to identify.  Ahead in our series we'll share some tips on viewing the moon and we'll talk a little about some other standout astronomical objects you can find with a telescope or binoculars.  Also coming up we'll give you instructions on how to build a ginormous telescope of your own. 

Meanwhile, keep looking up!  Jesus is coming.


Tom King, Master Guide

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