Supposedly sent to distract Hercules, while he was fighting Hydra. The crab was killed in this fight, and as a reward it was placed in the sky by Hera.

Cancer is easy to locate as it is between Leo and Gemini.

There are no stars above 4th magnitude and so does not look like anything special.

Using a pair of binoculars or a telescope you can find M44 the Beehive, which is an open globular cluster containing around 200 stars. Just below and to the left there is also M67, another open cluster, which is quite a lot fainter. This cluster contains around 450 stars and is best seen with a low power telescope.