Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand’s third-largest island, is roughly the size of a postage stamp compared to its northern siblings, but it packs a feathery punch. The Stewart Island tokoeka, a subspecies of the Southern brown kiwi (Apteryx australis), numbers in the thousands there, vastly outnumbering the island’s human population of about 500. That’s right: flightless birds are the majority. The avian national icon is just one highlight of this roughly triangular landmass, located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the South Island. Rakiura National Park covers about 85 percent of the bright green island, and as the Māori name - Rakiura, meaning “glowing skies” - suggests, it’s a prime spot for viewing the aurora australis.

On the northern half, podocarp and hardwood forests - coniferous trees with ancient lineages - blanket the land, while shrublands, wetlands, and coastal dunes like those at Mason Bay fill the rest. The tall trees produce fruits that attract bellbirds with their pure-toned calls and the rare kākāpō, the world’s heaviest and only flightless parrot. For a bird haven, look no further than Ulva Island, located within the inlet near Halfmoon Bay (Oban). Rats, which once preyed on bird eggs and chicks, were deemed eradicated in 1997, and the island has mostly stayed predator-free. Conservationists have since launched a project on the larger Stewart Island/Rakiura to eliminate rats, possums, feral cats, and hedgehogs.

When darkness falls, the island’s human denizens can look skyward for stars, auroras, nearby dwarf galaxies, and other Southern Hemisphere night-sky features. In 2019, this remote, sparsely inhabited island was designated an International Dark Sky Sanctuary. Amateur astronomers might search for objects from Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge, such as the Jewel Box star cluster or Centaurus A, a peculiar elliptical galaxy possibly formed by two galaxies colliding. The image was acquired in May, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.