The Southern Cross

The Southern Cross, originally uploaded by John Larkin.

The Southern Cross. This is one of the first constellations learnt by children in Australia. If you can find the Southern Cross in the night sky then you know your are looking towards the south. The vertical axis of this constellation points towards the South Celestial Pole. It is usually way up there with Orion and Scorpio in terms of the constellations initially picked up by kids in the Southern Hemisphere. This is of course before the advent of the Simpsons, Playstations and the Internet. I took some photographs of the night sky and, using Photoshop, managed to make the constellation a little more visible. Check out the rest of the story, complete with links to great astronomical images and maps of the southern sky, here.