Anything by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke. To lighten the mood try Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy. Fantasy and comedy so may not suit, but high on ethics, The disk world series by Terry Pratchett.

Being in the Southern Hemisphere it has to be the Southern cross, it's the only one that makes any sense. We call Orion the saucepan, his belt is the base of the saucepan. You would struggle to find anyone who could point out any other constellation.

Any pin hole will do, when I was a kid we had an outdoor outhouse, pretty rough, the tin on the roof was full of nail holes which would cast nice projections of the sun when there was an eclipse. Walk under a leafy tree and all the little bits of sunlight managing to get through will be little crescents.