In Australia, where I grew up, the Magellanic Clouds are two naked-eye easily visible
dwarf irregular galaxies which orbit our own Milky Way galaxy. (Dwarf being a
relative term.) They sit comfortably in the lower southern sky, down a little from
the brightness of the Milky Way, and against a background of darker sky.

In 1987, it was my great joy to see the supernova explosion in the first hours after
the light finally reached Earth and was first reported (the star having exploded over 150,000 years ago).
(Goodbye, Sanduleak -69 202 ... a giant star in the Tarantula Nebula, part of the Large Magellanic Cloud;
a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way 170,000 light years from our solar system


I thought this landscape was a good match for the Magellanic Clouds.


Read about these galaxies here.