Reply #3: A late stone age culture thought about it like this: [View All]

The photograph above shows the aboriginal "emu-in-the-sky" constellation in the sky. It won its creator, Barnaby Norris, third prize in the prestigious 2007 "Eureka" awards.

To see the "constellation", look at the dark dust-clouds, not the stars!

Below it is the emu engraving at the Elvina engraving site, in Kuring-Gai Chase National Park, near Sydney The constellation is positioned above the engraving as it appears in real life in Autumn.

Many Aboriginal groups have stories about the “Coalsack” – the famous dark cloud next to the Southern Cross. Some see it as the head of a lawman, or a possum in a tree, but many groups tell stories of a great emu whose head is the Coalsack, and whose neck, body, and legs are formed from dust lanes stretching across the Milky Way. It’s easy to make out the emu in a dark autumn sky, and once you’ve seen it, the Milky Way will never look the same again This “Emu in the Sky” has became an icon of the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) project.

More: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/AboriginalAstronomy/Examples/emu.htm