Find Kiwi in the Sky

Away from city lights, under pristine dark sky, the Milky Way and Venus appears over central Victoria, Australia. A faint red glow of aurora australis also appears near the horizon on the left. From the photographer: “Venus was neatly positioned as an eye of the Kiwi in the Sky – an imaginary bird outlined by the dark lanes under the center of the Milky Way in the constellation of Ophiuchus. (Move the slider on the image to see it. Kiwi is a flightless bird endemic to New Zealand). Many aboriginal peoples in Australia believed that the dark patches in the Milky Way represent a giant Emu in the Sky (Emu is the largest bird native to Australia). The dark nebula just under the Southern Cross is the Emu’s head (at the image left edge), the neck goes through Alpha and Beta Centauri (bright stars on the left) and the wider part of the Milky Way in Scorpius becomes the Emu’s body (the middle of the view).”