A while back, I had picked up a "new" (to me) Tamron 24 mm lens. I decided to do some wide-field, night-sky photography to try it out and, eventually, came up with this image. The Moa (in NZ) or the Emu (in Australia), seen in profile, is a series of visually connected dark regions in this portion of the Milky Way. Look for the two bright stars in the middle of the image. These mark the neck and shoulder. Just above and to the right is the head and beak, which, to astronomers, goes by the unlovely name of Caldwell 99 ("The Coal Sack Nebula"). Just above that is the Southern Cross. Moving down and to the left from the two pointer stars, we see the body of the bird; further down are its feet.
The dark areas are not empty regions. Rather, most are dust lanes and dark nebulae that block the light from the background stars. This dust is extremely fine - generally smaller than smoke particles - so it takes large amounts of it to screen out starlight. Astronomers can use specialised telescopes and sensors to peer through this dust to find what it is hiding.
The Moa is easily visible in Canterbury most of the year from a good dark site on a clear night. Note, though, being the clever bird it is, it seems to be doing a head stand around 22:00 during the mid- to late winter evenings. As of the date of this post (05/09/2018), it appears to be just completing a back flip in the southwest. Look for it to right itself in the southeast by the beginning of April, around the same time in the evening.
Date: June 19, 2017
Image centre (HD 131376):
R.A.: 14h 55m 58s
Dec: -60° 54' 21.3"
Photo stuff: Canon 6D with Tamron 24mm at f/8; 11 frames at 120s ea.