As seen from the northern hemisphere, the constellation's brighter stars form an easily recognizable asterism known as "the Teapot".

[4] The constellation as a whole is often depicted as having the rough appearance of a stick-figure archer drawing its bow, with the fainter stars providing the outline of the horse's body.

Sagittarius famously points its arrow at the heart of Scorpius, represented by the reddish star Antares, as the two constellations race around the sky.

In classical antiquity, Capricorn was the location of the Sun at the December solstice, but due to the precession of the equinoxes, this had shifted to Sagittarius by the time of the Roman Empire.

α Sgr (Rukbat, meaning "the archer's knee"[6]) despite having the "alpha" designation, is not the brightest star of the constellation, having a magnitude of only 3.96.

[7] Sigma Sagittarii (σ Sgr) ("Nunki") is the constellation's second-brightest star at magnitude 2.08.

[8] Delta Sagittarii (δ Sgr) ("Kaus Meridionalis"), is a K2 spectra star with magnitude 2.71 about 350 light years from Earth.

Beta Sagittarii, located at a position associated with the forelegs of the centaur, has the traditional name "Arkab", meaning "Achilles tendon".

In 1999 a violent outburst at V4641 Sgr was thought to have revealed the location of the closest known black hole to Earth,[22] but later investigation increased its estimated distance by a factor of 15.

Baade's Window is an area with very little obscuring dust that shows objects closer to the Milky Way's center than would normally be visible.

[28] The Babylonians identified Sagittarius as the god Nergal, a centaur-like creature firing an arrow from a bow.

[5] Some identify Sagittarius as the centaur Chiron, the son of Philyra and Cronus, who was said to have changed himself into a horse to escape his jealous wife, Rhea, and tutor to Jason.

[5] Or, as an alternative tradition holds, that Chiron devised the constellations Sagittarius and Centaurus to help guide the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece.

[31] A competing mythological tradition, as espoused by Eratosthenes, identified the Archer not as a centaur but as the satyr Crotus, son of Pan, who Greeks credited with the invention of archery.

[5][32] According to myth, Crotus often went hunting on horseback and lived among the Muses, who requested that Zeus place him in the sky, where he is seen demonstrating archery.

[33] On the west side of the constellation, Ptolemy also described the asterism Terebellum consisting of four 4th magnitude stars, including the closest and fastest moving member, Omega Sagittarii.