M7, the most southerly of the Messier objects, lies in Scorpio and barely scrapes above the horizon in the UK. In the lower part of the constellation that can only be seen from more southerly latitudes, lies NGc6231. Comprising in all about 120 stars, the star zeta Scorpio is possibly a mamber of the cluster. The cluster lies about 5700 light years away and in fact has some brilliant stars. If it was as close to us as the Pleiades, which it strongly resembles both in size and shape, the bright stars would outshine those of the Pleiades by a factor of about 50. The Pleiades lie only about 410 light years away. The cluster is associated with the much larger and more scattered H12 or Tr24, which is itself part of the even larger group Cr316. This whole extended grouping of stars marks the line of another spiral arm of our galaxy 5000 - 6000 light years away, and closer to the galactic centre than our own.