06-06-2013, 06:13 PM
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#103 (permalink)
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| Pogrebin
Join Date: May 2009 Location: London
Posts: 32,849
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Alexander River Hirsch
Gryffindor Third Year
Hogwarts RPG Name:
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  x11  x11
|  urine trouble | Pat's Strong Confident Other Half | Pees Like a Champion Unicorn Racehorse
Text Cut: Airey! Quote:
Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie  "As many of you mentioned, Polaris has a fixed potion in the night sky and all stars appear to rotate around it due to its location being nearly right on the axis of the earth which is true north, not magnetic north. There is a difference," he explained while giving the blackboard a quick tap. "It is because of the earth's spin on its axis that the stars appear to travel across the night sky in circular arcs around Polaris and makes it an ideal point of reference to navigate from."
As soon as he tapped the board, two charts appeared side by side to offer students a visual reference.
"As many mentioned, the easiest way to find Polaris is by using the asterism called the Big Dipper located within the in the constellation Ursa Major as a point of reference. What many forget to mention is that there is another constellation that can aid us in finding Polaris and that is Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia is has an easy to recognize 'W' shaped and is located across from Polaris from the Big Dipper. It's 'W' points right at the north star, so it is another means of finding and checking. It will always be on the opposite side of Polaris and the Big Dipper and therefore often high in the sky. The is especially useful when the Big Dipper is low on the horizon or obscured from view." He returned to the board and gave it another small tap to reveal another chart.
See? Rather easy to find the star once one know what they were looking for.
"So we know that Cassiopeia, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor are all constellations that revolve around Polaris. Given that it is December, what other constellations should you expect to find?" He would keep a running list. ... Well that was a lot of information.
Sccribble... scribble... scribble...
Alec's head shot up to look at the board when he heard a tapping. Oh... HEY! Diagrams! He sat back in his seat and tapped the end of his quill against his chin while Flamsteed talked. The diagrams were useful. Could he copy those down too? Just for reference and all that? And who knows, it might be useful information to know if they needed to find the true North Star. ... Maybe.
Okay... constellations... constellations that can be found in December time... "Professor?" he said, raising his hand in the air, "There's one called Perseus! Which... translates to the Hero, I think. Just like the person in legends it was named after...?" He... didn't know.
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