I genuinely thought that was a scorched finish. Although it's not a look I'd go for unless I was looking for wall dressings for a pub that does Sunday lunches, it is striking.
Nice reclaim job... even for a guitar. (spits on the ground).
Your next one looks, er, distressing though. I think you might have scorched it accidentally.
I agree re: the pickguard. My eye keeps going to the lower right hand corner of the unfinished body as seen in the image above. It's different to the bass on the left.
Even without the reference to the stars, the spacings are nicely incremental.
If you do call it your birth-sign bass you can then say it has astral charm. Should give you a lot of hippy cred.