How can we find out better the structure of the Milky Way,
the constitution of our own stellar system, its population, its motions?
One reason is that the centre of our own stellar system
— the part of the system around which everything rotates —
that centre you can observe only from the southern hemisphere.
And they were interested in the properties
of the nearest of all the other stellar systems,
and these are the Magellanic Clouds.
That one can observe only from the southern sky.