Naked Eye Challenge

[JohnG]

Hi all

Around midnight take the challenge and move away from your telescope and look out to the South East, if you have a clear view and can see the Milky Way, look for the celestial Emu of the Aboriginal Dreamtime, hint it is quite large and the head is the Coalsack in Crux.

Think outside the square, or round eyepiece in this case.

JohnG

[h0ughy]

John may not be a good one for the city areas, but I will do it at SPSP

[JohnG]

Sorry, should have said, next time you are at a dark sky site without the moon, too used to my skies down here.

JohnG

[ving]

I have seen said emu at a couple of sites but havent looked at home... might give it a try :D

[Volans]

G'day All,

Yes, the Emu is a great shape and I used to point it out frequently when I was doing astronomy tours while I was a tour guide. The legend behind it is pretty neat ( I can't verify it...does anyone else know of this legend or one similar?).

Emu was a large bird with beautiful plumage (Monty Python fans - stop thinking about the Dead Parrot Sketch!) and more to the point could fly very well. Emu was flying around one day when he saw some Brolgas dancing. He swooped down and asked if he could join in. The Brolgas were quite happy to let him join and they started to teach him the dances. Unfortunately, Emu's large wings kept hitting the others and they could not dance properly, so they told Emu they could help out because Emu was insistant that he wanted to dance like them.

They took Emu over to the fire and burnt off his wings. Emu did not care because he wanted to dance. When he wanted to leave after all the dancing, he found he could not fly. And when he looked at his once beautiful plumage, it was all brown and burnt.

So the Emu is now up in the sky to remind us of when he could fly.

Peter.