← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 191/235
Scheat
Scheat is the second-brightest star of Pegasus, the winged horse, and one of the four corners of the "Great Square" that dominates the autumn sky. Its name comes from the Arabic for "the leg", from its place on the horse's foreleg. It is an orange-red giant whose light varies a little over the weeks. In astrology it is a star of powerful imagination and independent thought, with a reputation for risk that older writers took very seriously.
In the zodiac
Scheat stands today at the very end of Pisces, about 29°45' — less than a quarter of a degree from Aries, which it will enter within the next twenty years or so. It moves forward about one degree every 72 years through precession, so a chart from 1950 places it about a degree earlier, near 29° Pisces.
Its nature
Ptolemy gave the bright stars of the Horse the nature of Mars and Mercury: a quick, sharp mind joined to restless energy. Traditional writers counted Scheat among the harshest of the fixed stars and associated it with misfortune and danger, including danger connected with water. Modern astrologers read it far more gently: as an inventive, unconventional mind, a strong inner vision, and a tendency to push against limits — an imagination that is a real gift when it is given structure, and that can overreach when it is not.
In a chart
Only a close conjunction — within about a degree, a degree and a half at most — is usually counted. On Mercury or the Moon it is often read as a vivid, original imagination; on the Sun, the Ascendant or the Midheaven it can describe someone who goes their own way and thinks ahead of their time. The star colours the point it touches rather than acting alone, and it describes a temperament, not a fate.