I have gone through countless astronomy sites trying to find a photo of the Southern Cross constellation. I’ve found numerous charts showing its configuration and its position in the sky, but what I want is a photo. I want to get some sense of how bright it is, and how it looks relative to the stars and constellations around it. Any astronomers, amateur or otherwise? I just need a link to such a photo. Thanks in advance!
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000618.html
http://www.southernskies.com.au/crux.htm
I don’t mean to seem snarky, but these were both found in less than 5 minutes using http://www.google.com
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000618.html
Ooooo, ooo, I can help here.
I like this one, but you can search on the archives on Astronomy Picture of the Day for something more specific.
This is a great site for wallpaper . . .
Tisiphone
Thank you!
And Shiva, I tried google. I also tried Alta Vista and Ask Jeeves. As I said, I found a lot of sites, but none with photos, just drawings.
Wow, it is so beautiful! Not like our Big Dipper, which wouldn’t be anything special if they weren’t so large and bright. This is almost three-dimensional, like it’s leaning forward out of the sky. Four bright stars* forming the four points of a perfect cross is way more impressive than a boring old ladle. This is why I wanted a photo.
*No, I didn’t miss the fifth star; I’m just remarking on how perfectly the other four are arranged.
Glad to help, and a search engine tip:
Try Google’s ‘Advanced Search’ function to limit the domain it searches. For example, I searched for “southern cross photo” in only the domain ‘nasa.gov’.
In general, be as specific as possible to avoid overwhelming yourself.
Or overwhelm yourself-- What the hey! 
Duly noted, Shiva.
Keep in mind that most of the pictures that are linked to above are not as you would see it with the naked eye… The pictures where you can clearly see nebulosity are timed exposures.
This one from pldennison is probably the closest what it actually looks like with the naked eye.
Oh. Well, it still looks good.
The Southern Cross has two stars alongside it, known as pointer stars as the line they make points straight at it. They’re also very bright.
Alpha and Beta Centauri, the two nearest stars to our Sun.
However, there’s another cross-like formation, not quite as regular, that are known colloquially as the False Cross, and it has False Pointers too.
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