Class starts at 11:30 PM. Today's Class Schedule: a. Review. b. Stars & Our Sun. c. The Sun & Magic. Next Week: Earth & The Moon Telescopes not nessisary unless noted! Remember to bring note taking materials with you to class. Should you have any questions, feel free to visit my office between your daytime classes. For tutoring, please make an appointment with me prior. Feel free to ask questions! [/i] The astronomy classroom has now been remodelled to be 'indoors' (see post for details) and have windows that look outwards into an animated  image of space, similar to the Great Hall's ceiling enchantment. At the center of the room is a large sphere that is being used as a projector; underneith is the old armillary sphere. Desks are arranged in a circle around this globe and two alcoves (southwest and northwest) have small fireplaces to heat the room, which are raised slighly above the floor with steps leading to them. The original Astronomy classroom looked like this.

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Tapendra hadn't been looking forward to tonight, not really. He always looked forward to see his princess in class, of course; but days of frantically digging through the Astronomy office had produced nothing of what the old professor had been teaching them. The man had thoroughly emptied the office upon his departure; only the most recent plans had been left, in a corner of the tower classroom itself.

But what Eirene had said last week was, well, wrong. He'd hoped the girl was simply being nervous, but she now seemed to be telling the complete truth. He hadn't thought of Sinistra as all that tough, himself, but appearently Woolfolk had - or something. They where behind from where they should be, that was a simply fact.

Maybe the kids where just dumb.

He quickly dismissed that very...Ryan-ish thought from his mind. No. None of them had shown a lack in intelligence, just in knowldege. Back to basics, then. Well, he could deal with that. Even if it was a bit dissapointing.

Tapendra had gone for the Orion Nebula today, since it gave the room a nice glow and was on-topic...kind of. The classroom was in a state of organised mess; he'd begun moving his things in properly now and he had the southern alcove closed off and filled with boxes of books and...stuff. Kepler had taken up residence on top of the globe, as well, and was resisting any attempts short of magic to dislodge him.

He closed up his desk as students began to filter up the stairs, striding as has being habit up to the globe and tapping it with his wand, turning it 'on', as it where. He glared at Kepler, who just rolled over and lashed his tail.

"Take your seats quickly, please - we have a lot to cover today," he said, clearly somewhat impatient to get started. The lesson plans where chaotic; he had a lot to do, more than he had originally surmised.

Once the students where more or less seated, he addressed the class.

"I owe you an apology for last week," he said seriously, and meant it. "It has come to my attention in the intervening days that your previous professor's style may have left you lacking more knowledge than I surmised. I'm afraid that means we will be doing some review this class and hopefully we will be able to get everything sorted out and we can get underway properly."

He tapped the globe; the Celestial Globe appeared on it. "You all should know what this is. This is the Celestrial Globe. In short, it is the latitude and longitude lines we use on the Earth projected outwards into the sky to create a map of the heavens we can see. You should have been taught this as a base for star charting. Can anyone tell me how you would indicate the location of, for example, Sirius using this system?"

Assume your character is in class unless you want your character to be late.

Pax had tried to come to this Astromony lesson more prepared than he had been the last time. He didn't hold himself at fault for the discrepancies between the teaching styles of Professor Woolfolk and Professor Trishna, but he did take the situation as a challenge for himself. He could see the change in curriculum causing problems for himself-- he didn't take to anything particularly easily in the first place, and Astronomy was no exception-- so he had written home with a request for any relevant books that might be lying around, and studied up as best he could. Pax wasn't going to let this trip him up; he had been doing fairly well in school so far, making up for his lack of magical aptitude by sheer effort, and he didn't intend to falter now.

He glanced around the classroom when he arrived, admiring the artificial view out of the windows, and the globe in the centre of the room. Pax did hope he got the hang of this class again soon; Astronomy really was a fascinating and beautiful subject, and Pax wanted to overcome any problems with keeping up so that he could actually enjoy the class somewhat. So when Professor Trishna apologised for how last week's class had gone, Pax felt somewhat optimistic. He had been terrified that the new teacher would expect more of them than they could manage, but now it seemed like he was willing to work with them to bring them up to speed.

Pax watched with interest as the globe was suddenly covered in stars and constellations. When Professor Trishna asked how to locate Sirius, Pax tentatively raised his hands. 'Um... Do you mean, like... what the coordinates are? I mean... I mean the right ascension and declination?' Pax was never one to only raise his hand if he knew the answer for certain. If he did, he'd almost never get to answer a question, and he was always keen to at least try if he had a rough idea.

Unusually, Cyhirae had gotten to class early for once,  a full ten minutes earlier than normal in fact.  But then again, these were unusual circumstances as it wasn't every day that you're father was the professor. Gliese had trotted along beside her, occasionally running on ahead when Cy threw her toy mouse up the stairwell to the class.  For the first time in a long while the cat was actually coming with her to class instead of sneaking in later after it had all started (or in the case of DADA and History of Magic, waiting outside the class for it to end).  She doubted her father would mind, provided Gliese could behave herself and not harass her favorite victim.

Cyhirae placed her book bag on her desk, pulling out her pens, books, and a large notebook. Stuffing her scarf into her bag she placed it underneath the chair.  Cyhirae glanced at the board with the class schedule on it and frowned. She had been hoping that this class would actually get beyond review and into something new today. "It doesn't have to be new for me, just new for everyone else. Dahlia's great and all but it'd be nice to be able to talk about this stuff with more people than just her without having to spend more time explaining than talking."

Gliese had already gotten to her father first, purring up as storm and rubbing against his legs, just begging for attention from her second favorite person in the world. Cyhirae beamed at her father hugging him tightly. "Are we going to get past the basics today, Daddy?"

Cyhirae jumped a little as a loud yowl split through the air. Gliese, having found herself no longer under her human's attention, had clawed her way up the display globe to Keplar and pounced.  Keplar, in typical fashion, reacted in loud hissing protest. He leapt off the globe in an attempt to escape with Gliese in hot pursuit. As the two of them raced past, Cyhirae reached out and grabbed Gliese allowing Keplar to escape to the relative safety of Tapendra's desk.

Cyhirae scowled down at the cat who was purring in smug satisfaction, "Can't you torment Keplar some other time." She shot a sheepish look at her father, "Sorry Daddy, it won't," she glared down at the cat again, "happen again." She strode over to her desk as the remainder of the class filtered in, and dropped Gliese beside her desk and sat down. While still purring, Gliese at the very least knew that she was to stay put now.

"I owe you an apology for last week," he said seriously, and meant it. "It has come to my attention in the intervening days that your previous professor's style may have left you lacking more knowledge than I surmised. I'm afraid that means we will be doing some review this class and hopefully we will be able to get everything sorted out and we can get underway properly."

Cyhirae's brow furrowed in confusion, " Didn't we deal with this last week? It's pretty much star charts and the basics for everyone but Dahlia and I." As her father continued on it quickly became clear to her what he meant by review. "Ah, that kind of review," Cyhirae thought as Pax answered her father's question about locating stars.

Cyhirae began idly stroking Gliese's head as she glanced at the lessons board, "Hopefully we'll get through this quickly and onto the good stuff."

Eirene sat next to Pax as class started, frowning and glancing pointedly at the cat Cyhirae had brought with her. So not fair! Eirene would have brought her pet Xanthe to class if she could, even though Xanthe would have likely hid under her chair or bolted out of the tower at the quickest opportunity. Her cat was, in every sense of the phrase, a scaredy cat.

Then. Then! The two cats in the classroom fought with each other, racing around the room and being nuisances. Eirene's eyes bulged out of her head in indignation, but Cyhirae apologized and the class went on. She was too distracted by her own feelings of jealousy and annoyance to focus on the professor's question like she should have. Luckily, Pax piped up and asked for clarification.

She considered raising her hand and complaining about the cat's presence, but the professor was Cyhirae's dad, and he also looked harried this evening. Eirene worried that explaining what they knew about astronomy (or didn't know) last week had made him think less of her, and there was nothing worse in her mind than a professor that didn't like her, so she settled for sending glares Cyhirae's way.

For extra effect, she sniffed loudly, and put her hand over her nose, pretending to be allergic.

"Achoo!" She then fake-sneezed into her handkerchief, dabbing at her nose delicately as she offered the professor an apologetic smile.

"Indeed I do, Mister Wintergreen," he said, glancing at Eirene  in surprise as she sneezed, nodding acknowledgement to her apologetic look. The cats fighting was such a common thing at home he hadn't really noticed it. He smiled kindly at Pax, turning back to the boy. "And I've got to apologize - the question was something of a trick, but I'm glad you knew of the system in general - 5 points to Hufflepuff. For a first year class you are not expected to be able to use this system on demand, but you are expected be familiar with it going into your 2nd year," he said as he started changing the globe.

"For those of you not familiar with the system at all," he said, having glanced at Mairead, and noticing the scarred boy's expression of confusion and boredom (good god, what had made a scar like that?)  and making an educated guess, "The Latitude and Longitude lines are what we use on the planet to specify locations." An image of Earth appeared with the lines on it. "This forms a grid on the planet and based on the grid's points, we can refer to locations quite accurately. The vertical lines are Longitude lines, and the horizontal lines are Langitude."

"The two cental lines of each direction are the Prime Merdian, for longitude, and Equator, for latitude. These two lines represent 0 degrees in their respective orientations. The system works the same when projected into space, but with some major differences - and these differences are why I'm not demanding you know this system by heart."

He tapped the globe to show the celestial sphere - this time, with the coordinate system's model on it. Then he pointed at the board and words began to write on it. "First difference: a change in terms. On the Celestial system, longitude is called right ascension, and latitude is known as declination." This information scrawled in neat text on the board as he spoke.

"The major difference is that the stars move," he continued. "On Earth, what's in a location on the grid will stay there. As the Earth rotates, both on its own and around the Sun, the stars at certain locations change both in the night and through the year. Therefore, when we specify a star's location using this system, we also factor movement into the result."

He pointed his wand at the board and writing began to scrawl again, this time off to the side of the vocabulary words. "In the Earth system, coordiantes are written simply - for example, 40.979890, -113.554687." he said, appearently quietly unaware that to first years numbers that long didn't count as 'simple'.

"Sirius's location, by contrast, is written as 6 hr 45 min R.A. and -16 degrees 43 minutes declination. This factors in movement and allows astronomers to know both when and where to look." He smiled at the blank looks he was getting. "And that's why I'm not expecting you to be able to fully use this system yet; trust me, it can be a bit confusing even to the 5th and 7th years."

He changed the image back to a blank field of stars. "For your first few years, what you will be doing is learning the constellations and using them as a reference to help guide you. Once you begin to use this system in earnest, they will be invaluble for finding your way around the nigh sky. Now, you should have been taught most of the popular constellions and the famous stars; can one of you tell me which constellion holds the Pleiades?" He tapped the globe to show the stars in question.

For Christmas, from one of his wonderful grandparents, Erik had been given a beautiful set of red shiny satin pajamas with a wonderful hood, for his being sorted into Gryffindor. They were shiny, soft, comfortable to sleep him, and he was suppose to keep them extra clean and nice—by request of his mother.

His mother was going to kill him.

Erik, quite happy that the astronomy tower was no longer cold, went to class in those very pajamas, except they weren’t red anymore. What had replaced the red colors was an ingenious work of art that utilized the help of his wonderful senior troublemaking classmates, who had found him all too adorable to actually say no too. And when he demanded more, they thought it was even cuter and just kept going and going, until finally his pajamas captured the image a black hole, sucking in just about anything in it’s path.

Every time Erik walked or move, it was as if the devolving star was a camera panning around some miniature universe living in the fabric of his clothing. He had already devoured Pluto on his way to class, and once he reached his seat he looked down to see some moons being engulfed into the void, only to spin around as Jupiter started on a painfully slow roll across his back.

He presumed the enchantment was acting up, and that it was a simple wardrobe malfunction, so he dropped his starry sky-self down onto his seat, books out in front of him, and beaming a ridiculously wide smile at Trishna. Why? Because his clothes weren’t as distracting as the entire astronomy room, and therefore, less distracting, therefore not distracting by default—obviously. Besides, it wasn’t devouring planets quickly enough for anyone to notice except for about every five to ten minutes.

“Ooh!” said in response to the question about Pleiades, “I know those! I ate them on the way up here, it’s in Taurus!” he said oozing with pride.

Tapendra, who had been on the opposite side of the globe from Erik until the boy answered, finally noticed the child's robes out of the corner of his eye. He stared at them , though not for the reason Erik might have guessed.

"Correct, Mister Collins," he said, walking fully around the globe and eying the boy's clothes critically.  He blinked and turned back to the globe, clearing his throat. Now wasn't the time to get off on a tangent, as happy as he was to see another student who knew what a black hole was.

"Let's try a slightly more ambiguous question, but one you have hopefully seen the answer to in your telescopes." He tapped the globe and the Orion Nebula appeared. "Can any of you tell me which constellation you can see this in? It's visible to the naked eye, so you should have had it pointed out-"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a planet vanish into the black hole on Erik's shirt. He gave up, and he turned and smiled at Erik.

"Since Mister Collins has decided to dress so...interestingly tonight," he said, "Perhaps you can explain to the class what the display on your clothes is,  Collins?" He smiled. "And yes, there's points in it for you if you know."

“You said I could!” He piped up quickly before Trishna continued, and then listened to the rest of what the professor said and his lips curved in a real smile.

Really? He wasn’t actually losing points for once? “It’s a black hole,” he said as he smoothed his shirt with confidence, “It sucks in eveeeeeryyyything, even light—well, if things happens to get close anyway.” He mumbled off, and then continued with  pride, “Mine moves, and has eaten most of the planets already on the way to class.”

He crossed his arms and sat back beaming as a comet flew past and swirled into the space void of his pj’s. While he was a bit upset at not getting on someone's nerves, the fact that he had given himself the opportunity to win points made him feel better. Maybe the new teacher wasn't so bad, although, his sister's constant drooling still kept Erik a bit edgy towards the newcomer.

Dahlia was alot more conservative than she had been the previous week. The heat in her cheeks had not returned and while she was still eager to be learning from a man such as Trishna the initial shock had worn off and now she was seeing him as just one of her Professors.

She had been listening to everything he said and jotting it all down in her notes but it really wasn't registering with her. She knew most of the material already but then again she was used to knowing more than most of her classmates by now. Being so late in the night it was easy for her brain to just go into autopilot. She hadn't even attempted to answer any of the questions Professor Trishna was asking.

In fact the only sign of life in the girl was the fact that she had leaned over to her twin and whispered, "If mom ever finds out you've charmed Grandma Betsy's PJ's she'll kill you," before going back to her note taking.

It wasn't all that surprising that Erik's clothing had caught the Professor's eye. They were kind of distracting or rather she assumed they were for other people. Dahlia had learned long ago how not to be distracted by her twin regardless of what he was doing. She watched the exchange between the two with a simple smile on her face. At least Erik was going to get points awarded instead of taken away for his elaborate display. She supposed it could have been worse. At least he had kept in the theme of Astronomy instead of charming his clothes to spout bad words or show a hag eating children or something of the likes.

He beamed at Erik. "Correct, Mister Collins - five points to Gryffindor," he said, looking to the rest of the class. "Though to add a bit more to that description - black holes to not suck, exactly - you should have been briefed on how gravity varies on the planets in our solar system, yes? Think of a black hole as a region of space where gravity is so strong nothing can escape from it - not even light." He smiled, clearing excited. "You'll get to hear about them in your 3rd and 5th years a bit. Fascinating objects, really."

He looked back at the globe, mentally orienting himself. "Now then, as we were," he said. "Can any of you tell me where this object is located?" he asked, indicating the nebula again.

Cyhirae raised her hand and smiled at her father, "The Orion Nebula is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex and is located just south of Orion's Belt. Because it can be seen from with the naked eye, it is considered the middle 'star'  in the sword of the Orion Constellation even though it isn't actually a star." She resisted the urge to go further and reached down to start petting Gliese again.

Her hand hitting air, Cyhirae looked down to find the cat missing from where Cy had put her earlier. Glancing around the room Cyhirae located Gliese stalking over to her father's desk, no doubt intent upon bothering Keplar again. Cyhirae bit her lip, wondering if she should get up and potentially interrupt the class to grab Gliese before she caused Keplar to freak out again or if she should wait and see if anything would actually happen.