Happy Australia Day - The Southern Cross (is not Australian)

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Happy Australia Day - The Southern Cross (is not Australian)

[Public Domain] 25 Jan 2015 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Astrophotography
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I took this one a few days ago but held off posting until Australia day. You can see the Southern Cross (aka Acrux) as the 4 brightest stars in the middle of the bottom half of the photo. It’s like an upside down crucifix. There’s also a 5th, dimmer star.

If you are still not 100%, here it is with the Australian Flag. You can see that the stars on the flag are actually perfectly exact astronomical positions, which is pretty neat!

And yet, I can assure you that the Southern Cross is indeed, not Australian at all.

This may come as a surprise, but nobody from the 5 stars that make up the Southern Cross (Acrux), actually come from Australia. In fact, they are 325 light years away in space. I have it on good authority that they’ve never been to Australia, nor has any Australian been there.

To make matters worse, bloody Kiwis, Papua New Guineans, Samoans and Brazilians all use the Southern Cross on their flags.

Some Australian’s have recently been using the Southern Cross to express their “Aussie Pride” in ways that celebrate their white-Australian national origins. Which is ironic only because it was originally used in this way to express rebellion *against* the english monarchy rule. But that’s neither here nor there – you can’t have it for either.

The Southern Cross belongs to nobody, at least until you can get there and stick a few flags about the place and apologise to the Acruxian’s for your subsequent uninvited human colony.

Until then, Australia is one of the many places in the southern hemisphere you can see most of the Southern Cross in the night sky.

You won’t be able to see the 5th, smaller star, because of the streetlights.

Happy Australia Day!

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