Adorah sat at her desk sipping some tea as she watched the students enter, giving them a little more freedom to mingle than they had had the last few classes. She was particularly excited about today's lesson, as they were going to get into more than just staring at things in the sky. Adorah enjoyed the science and magic behind astronomy, and she couldn't wait to start sharing that with the students before her. "Good evening, everyone! Welcome back to another week of Astronomy! I hope you are all excited about another lesson," Adorah said as she began to set up for the lesson. She was going to be using a rare piece of magic today, and it was always fun to see the students' reaction to it. "This week, we are going to be looking at how stars move in the sky." Professor Zumwalt stood at the front of the class, pausing a moment in case the students still had yet to take out their note-taking utensils.
"Now, if I were able to keep you all night, you'd be able to see how the stars pass over us in the nighttime sky, much like the sun does during the day. But, to make things simple, this week we are staying inside, and I'll be showing you a ceiling demonstration, much like the same magic used for the Great Hall ceiling. This will allow me to control time above us in our classroom sky." Adorah held her wand up to ceiling of their classroom. "Astra Fero*."
A bubble filled out near the walls of their classroom, hovering over them. As they looked up, stars and galaxies appeared above them. The bubble did not reach the floor, more so representing an umbrella. She heard small gasps and exclamations among the first years and smiled before continuing. "Now, this is an exact representation of the night sky on September 1st, around 10 pm, when you all had first arrived at the castle, about the time I'm sure you were falling asleep," Professor Zumwalt said with a teasing tone, sure that many of them were restless that first night in such a new place. "You'll notice when you look up facing towards the front of the classroom, a large star along our horizon line. This is Vega, which lives in the constellation called Lyra," she said, waving her wand so lines appeared connecting the stars to form the small constellation.
"Now, watch what happens to the star Vega when I move time forward so we can see how the night sky appeared just a few hours later." Adorah waved her wand, and the stars began to slowly move across their pretend sky as the night she was recreating continued. The star Vega quickly fell beneath the horizon, and to the east, new stars were appearing and rising up, but the stars towards the south remained more or less the same. She stopped when the time would have been around three in the morning.
"You'll see at this time early in the morning, Vega is no longer visible. In fact, in the same position is the constellation Pegasus," she continued before again waving her wand, and lines formed where the constellation was. "Now, constellations are something we will go into later on in your third year. For now, I want you all to ponder what happened during the night on September 1st between 10 pm and 3 am that would change the nighttime sky like we just saw. Next week, we'll go into more details about this process with more technical terms. Don't forget to read the next two chapters in your book, and I'll see you all next week!" Professor Zumwalt said, dismissing the class as she waved the doors open, leaving the stars above alone so the students could walk out under them.
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For full credit, RP the lesson.
*Astra Fero - An astronomical depiction from the memory of the creator displayed in 3D within the surrounding area. Used to represent a large area of space.
