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Antares
Antares is the heart of Scorpius, the Scorpion: a red supergiant of the first magnitude, low in the southern summer sky for northern viewers. Its name is usually taken to mean "rival of Mars" (Ares), because its colour matches the red planet's, and the two are often confused when Mars passes nearby. In astrology it is one of the four Royal Stars, a star of intensity, courage and passion — powerful, wholehearted, and inclined to extremes.
In the zodiac
Antares stands today at about 10° Sagittarius, almost exactly opposite Aldebaran at 10° Gemini. It moves forward about one degree every 72 years through precession, so a chart from 1950 places it about a degree earlier, near 9° Sagittarius.
Its nature
Ptolemy gave Antares the nature of Mars and, in some degree, of Jupiter. The Persian tradition counted it among the four Royal Stars, the Watcher of the West. Older writers were stark about it: they said it brought rashness, obstinacy and destructive impulses, and linked it with sudden reversals — though the same writers also credited it with generosity and broad-mindedness. Modern astrologers usually read it as fierce commitment: a capacity for courage and single-minded focus that rewards a worthy aim, and that can turn against itself when it becomes obsession or all-or-nothing thinking.
In a chart
Only a close conjunction — within about a degree, a degree and a half at most — is usually counted. On the Sun, the Ascendant or the Midheaven it is often read as a strong, driven presence, someone who throws themselves fully into what they do; on the Moon or a personal planet it can describe deep feeling and a need to care intensely. The star colours the point it touches rather than acting alone, and how that intensity is used is the person's own.