Sky Cultures · 6 of 7
Shapes in the Dark
Can a constellation be made of darkness instead of stars?
In the Andes and in Australia the constellations are the dust clouds between the stars: a llama, a tinamou and an emu.
You’ll be able to find the llama and the emu in the dark lanes of the Milky Way.
Before this: The Southern Cross (6 min)
Where and which night
Working out when this is best placed from where you are…
Where
Kept for this guide only, until you change it here — your map settings, and every other guide, stay as they are.
Print, play outside or present
Scan with a phone's camera, or open
Sources
- HYG stellar database v4.2 — star positions, magnitudes and every separation quoted here
- Urton, At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky: An Andean Cosmology (University of Texas Press, 1981)
- Salomon & Urioste (trans.), The Huarochirí Manuscript (University of Texas Press, 1991), ch. 29 — Yacana drinks the sea
- Fuller, Norris & Trudgett, "The Astronomy of the Kamilaroi and Euahlayi Peoples and Their Neighbours", Australian Aboriginal Studies 2014/2, 3
- Norris, "Dawes Review 5: Australian Aboriginal Astronomy and Navigation", PASA 33, e039 (2016)
- Falchi et al., "The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness", Science Advances 2, e1600377 (2016)
- Bortle, "The Bortle Dark-Sky Scale", Sky & Telescope, February 2001
With a keyboard, focus the sky, aim it with the up and down arrow keys, and press Enter to drop the pin at the centre of the view; or press Show me.