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.

 

[Zeke Baros]

Zeke stretched and yawned as he entered the Astronomy classroom. It was nice being out of the dungeons after hours, but the later lessons were going to take some getting used to. He took notes and listened to Professor Zumwalt demonstrate why some stars shined brighter than others which he found interesting. Once the lecture was over, he gathered up his belongings and followed her outside. He listened and nodded along, looking up at the night sky. Once the lesson ended, he headed back inside and returned to the dungeons to sleep.

 

[Freddie Lagowski]

Freddie wanted to care about Astronomy, but he just didn't - not tonight. He was exhausted. The tiredness had hit him out of nowhere. One moment he'd been fine, the next all he wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for three days. He rubbed his eyes as Professor Zumwalt lit the candles, trying to bring them into focus, but everything had a fuzzy halo around it. No way was he going to remember anything she was saying. Things she'd said thirty seconds ago were already floating away.

Wait - what? They were going down to the grounds? Freddie couldn't believe his bad luck. He clung tight to the railings as he made his way down the stairs, trying his best to keep up, to blend in. By the time they reached the bottom, his throat hurt with the effort not tear up. He paused by the door to have a fake coughing fit. Coughing made your eyes water a bit. Nobody would notice anything if he rubbed them now. If they did, he'd say it was the dust.

He hurried after his classmates. It was cold out, but that was all right - it woke him up a bit. Shivering, and hugging himself, he gazed up at the clear black sky. The stars always reminded him of camping. He'd made a big fuss about not wanting to go on that stupid trip, but he'd have done anything to be back there now. Maybe he just didn't know how good he'd had it.​

 

[Marina Vortalis]

Marina still didn’t think it was fair that she had to have a class at night. She supposed she kind of got it, but since there was a little thing called magic and they could have a fake roof, why couldn’t they have just made a fake roof that showed the sky at night even if they were in the middle of the day. She didn’t see how that would be too hard for a decently good wizard or witch to achieve. She had things to do in the morning that she was going to have to be tired for because even though she could technically go to bed immediately after this class, she would have to write things in her journal first and she couldn’t do that until her day was ended and it didn’t end until all classes were over. Hence, part one of her predicament. The next part of her predicament was that she didn’t understand why they couldn’t have met down stairs, because now she was going to have to go downstairs and then back upstairs to get to her common room, especially as she’d already been downstairs today and had come back up the stairs to go to this class. The way this was organised was quite frankly atrocious and she felt like she might have to go and see the Headmaster yet again. Though given her last meeting with him, she was unsure it would be helpful at all but at least she could say she’d tried in protest. After they got outside the class went by quickly, thankfully, and Marina was able to take her notes and head back to her common room, but knew it would be another two hours minimum until she could actually sleep.​

 

[James Cosgrove]

James had already turned in the homework, mostly because he hadn’t wanted to take it with him and have to do it in his spare time. He took his seat as Professor Zumwalt started talking more about stars. They would be going outside to look through the telescope, which James was excited about, anything was better than sitting in a classroom. When it was finally time to head out, he followed his classmates down the stairs, passing Freddie Lagowski on the way down. “Come on, Lagowski, last one outside is a flobberworm,” He laughed as he passed him and eventually headed outside onto the cliffs where they set up the telescopes and spent the rest of the lesson looking through them and making notes. Once the lesson was over James packed up and left.

@Freddie Lagowski

 

[Jun Nakamura]

Jun got to the classroom in good time, feeling completely fine as he was a bit of a night owl. Nighttime classes actually worked well for him, it was just a shame they also had daytime ones. Jun settled in then was told they'd be going out. He took notes on the information, remembering some of it from things his uncle had told him. After that, he went outside to look at the stars. It was a nice night for it. Jun looked up, identifying quickly several constellations. He didn't have anyone to share that information with, but he knew their stories. Even some of the Japanese names. He enjoyed just looking at the sky, remembering times he'd spent with his dad. When the lesson ended, Jun felt a bit nostalgic as he went back to his dorm.