Astronomy 1:2

Adorah was ready to get into the thick of it with the first years this evening. She was wearing a special set of robes Juniper had designed as a "new job" gift. The purple and blue fabric looked normal under the castle lights, but when they walked outside under the moonlight, it would sparkle with different constellations. She loved wearing it for the first years, especially as they began to explore the night sky.

"Welcome back to astronomy!" Professor Zumwalt greeted. "If you didn't turn in your homework from last week, be sure to set it on my desk before we head out because tonight, we are not staying here for very long," she said with a smile. "You are all going to become astronomers like we talked about last week. We'll go out and look up to the sky, unaided by any technology and just view it with our own eyes," she said, excited for the students. While she didn't remember the lesson that had set her love for astronomy is stone, she knew that the first look at the night sky, especially if it was clear enough, was very special. Also, many of the students who grew up under city lights would have never seen the sky as brilliantly as it is on the castle grounds, where the light pollution is minimal.

"Now, the sun is still setting; so, we are going to go over a few things you might be able to see once we head outside. First off, on an average night, you can expect to see between six to ten thousand stars with just your eyes, no telescopes or magic. Counting might be best left for someone else," she said with a slight laugh. "Once we arrive at the lawn and you look up, you'll notice one thing right away. There are going to be some very bright stars and some fainter and others even fainter than that. There are a few reasons why that is. First, not all stars give off the same light. Let me give you an example." Adorah waved her wand at two candles on her desk, watching them quickly light up. She walked up to the small, red candle first.

"I have this one candle here. It's small, and the wick is rather short on it. Next to it is this bright candle; the wick is longer and burning brighter. Stars are similar to this, some are dimmer by nature and others burn vastly brighter than others." Adorah paused for a moment, letting the students write down anything they thought was important.

Continuing on, Adorah began to speak again. "Secondly, they're not all the same distance from us. You might go out and see a rather bright star and next to it a faint star. It doesn't mean the faint star is smaller or dimmer than the larger brighter one - it could just be a matter of distance," Professor Zumwalt said, feeling as though she might be going into too much detail as one of the students yawned somewhere in the back. "The brightest star in the nighttime sky is called Sirius, the dog star. We'll also see Betelgeuse, which has a red color. Both of these will be rising over the South-Eastern Horizon. Along the southern horizon, you should see the Milky Way Galaxy, which is the galaxy we are located in and will be discussed in a later lesson during the fourth year." Adorah paused and looked around at the students. The yawning student was leaning on their hand trying to stay awake while others were scribbling furiously on their parchment. Adorah smiled and quickly blew out the candles on her desk.

"Alright, time for our adventure! Gather up your things, and let's head up to the grounds. We'll be near the cliffs where our view will be the most unobstructed. However, this isn't a free pass to go to the cliffs on your own." She locked the classroom once all the students were out and had them follow her down and out of the castle. Her robes started to glisten as they made their way close to their destination. The cliffs themselves were forbidden areas so she didn't dare take the students beyond the fencing, nor did she take her eyes off the students long enough to let any of them make their way up that way. She pointed out the things she had discussed during the lecture portion of the class and let the students overall enjoy the view before sending them up to their dorms for the night. Adorah enjoyed seeing some of the excited reactions from the students and was happy to be able to take them out on such a lovely night to view the stars.

--
For full credit, RP the lesson.

 

[Angelo Dela Cruz]

Angelo had been looking forward to Astronomy all week. His jaw dropped Miss Zumwalt announced that they would be going stargazing. He'd never done that before. There weren't really any stars to look at back home, most times he'd see stars and then they'd move and then they'd turn out to be airplanes flying by. It didn't help that his area was very urbanized and filled with tall buildings. He lived on the 27th floor it wasn't even the highest. In the meantime, he listened as the teacher explained many things regarding the night sky. If seeing stars was a rarity back home, well... seeing constellations was a foreign concept. In fact, he'd started to believe that people were just making it up. They were not. When the class was finally led out and the teacher had finally let them watch the night sky, Angelo looked up at the sky in utter wonder. He wished he had his phone right at this moment just so he could send a picture to his mum, or video call her. She would have loved seeing this, he thought. The sky was clearer than he had ever seen before with stars glittering every so which way. He tried to pay attention to the professor, but he kept getting lost as he stared at the sky and he couldn't stop smiling. As class wrapped up, he reluctantly followed the others back inside. He wondered if he could get out more at night to look at things like this.​

 

[Christa Langley]

Christa was really excited that they would be stargazing for the lesson today, because that was what Astronomy was all about, right? She might not have thought the class would be very interesting becuse she wasn’t quite sure how it differed from the muggle world, but she was willing to give it a try none-the-less. She followed the class outside, wowed by the way Professor Zumwalt’s robes shimmered under the night sky. Was that a magical effect or a material one? Honestly she hoped it was a magical effect, because that felt like the right kind of perk for all of this. She listened along as they took notes about the brightness of the stars, looking up at the sky in anticipation of something, anythng, to happen. The sky looked amazing from here, and it was different a little bit to what she was used to seeing from her tent back home. She spotted Sirius first, the brightness of it unmistakable in the sky and then she moved on to try and find Betelgeuse, but had to wait for a classmate to find it first when they spotted the reddish hue. Wow she had so many questions, and she had no idea how to voice any of them. She hoped they would have more nights like this.​

 

[Finley Mackintosh Baros]

Being out of the classroom and outside was definitely more fun than having to sit in the classroom - but it still wasn’t going to make him love Astronomy. As long as he wasn’t writing essays though, he didn’t really mind all that much. Professor Zumwalt lead them to the cliffs and he was really excited about being in an area that was predominantly out of bounds. He only half-listened to the explanations about stars and brightness but when she pointed out Sirius and Betelgeuse he was excited that he could see them without a telescope. That was actually really cool to be honest. He wished he could have brought Lemon to class but he was worried he’d get into trouble for it. The whole sky looked amazing and he couldn’t wait to tell her all about it even if she wouldn’t really understand, since she was just a dog.​

 

[Miles Flynn]

Miles wasn't really looking forward to Astronomy, though did lighten up once he heard they would actually be going outside to look at the stars themselves. While he supposed it wouldn't be all that interesting, it was still better than just having to sit there and listen to some boring lecture. Though, there was still a little bit of information they had to get through first, though Miles wasn't really paying much attention as the Professor started to explain all the different things they would be able to see. He was just itching to get going already. Finally, they were led to the cliffs and Miles enjoyed the time just standing there and getting to stare up at the stars above their heads. Though it was still just a lot of bright dots in the sky to him, it was still better than being stuck inside having to listen to a lecture.

 

[Henri Fontaine]

Henri liked astronomy, it wasn’t dull like history of magic or boring like defence against the dark arts. There was something easily interesting about the stars in the sky. Something easy to enjoy and read about, not as interesting as other things, like the growing weed collection in the school gardens, or the bugs he’d found on the edge of the forest, but interesting nonetheless. He took out his books and then just watched as the professor got started. He looked at the candle, as the professor showed it to them, and then just watched it. But they weren’t in the class long, they were taken outside to the cliffs and he with everyone else watched the stars as they were instructed to. Though he got a little distracted by some of the bugs he’d spotted from his spot. But he was still vaguely watching the sky.