  MOMoke
Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Winterfell
Posts: 8,760
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Gideon Emerson
Slytherin Seventh Year
  x4
|  Who Am I? Ern's 2460FUN
SPOILER!!: Airey XD Quote:
Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie 
Airey felt like both hitting his head against the wall and laughing at Miss Sung's response. "Keep wishing on those shooting stars, Miss Sung," he said in a dry sarcastic tone. Hopefully everyone got the joke here.
OH OH OH! Now the smile was back on the man's face and there was even more EXCITED pointing going on. "YES....YES! Excellent Mr. Odessa!" he praised, still pointing to the boy. "I hope all of you were paying attention, because Mr. Odessa brought up some very important points that I would like to elaborate on a bit." And yes, he was still pointing at the young Slytherin. Pointing and doing so with an almost obnoxious enthusiasm. "The earth, wobbles and spins like a top about its axis. This is called precession and it takes about 26,000 years or so to complete a cycle. It is because of precession that Polaris has not always been our North Star - which we also refer to as a pole star. In fact, Thuban was the pole star in 3000 BC. Vega was the in 12,000 BC and will be Pole Star again in 14,000 AD." He paused here for a moment and finally ceased his pointing to sort of scurry back to the center of the semi circle of desks. It was times like this that he wished he had held his lesson in the planetarium. He could have actually shown them some of this movement. Or he could always use a charm...hmmm...
RIGHT! Back to giving more details.
"In fact, twenty years from now it is estimated that the star Gamma Cephei will become closer to the northern celestial pole than Polaris is. Yes, Polaris will be in as perfect position as it will ever be, but perhaps it's reign will soon come to an end?" Poor Polaris. Kicked out of its status just like Pluto had been. "Although that time is not estimated to come until about 5200 AD. Not to fear though, Polaris will once again become the north pole star in 27800 AD."
Airey was practically bouncing now thanks to Mr. Odessa and his response - which had the wheels in his head turning a million miles per second - and he all but pranced over to Miss Cambridge's seat. "Preciselllllllllllly," he sang.
One happy astronomer over here folks.
Polar bears? Who said anything about polar bears? Oh you funny Head Boy you! Airey pranced over to him and RUFFLED his hair. "Oh silly you, Mr. Gunter."
Ruffle ruffle ruffle.
"GLAD you brought up brightness! Polaris IS the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor, but it is certainly NOT the brightest star in our night sky," he said with a wide grin and some head bobbling. "Polaris is a moderately bright star. The brightest star in our sky, however, is something completely different." Pause and slight wiggly eyebrows towards the seventh year. "Care to venture a guess?"
That was really a question to anyone who thought they had an answer.
Smiiiiiiiiiiile for the adorable little Hufflepuff! "Yes and no," he said in response to her. "As Mr. Odessa pointed out and I elaborated on, Polaris has not and won't always be a pole star because of the way the earth wobbles on its axis. BUT! For the sake of our lifetimes, your definition is a sound one." Small pause. "And Polaris is actually an ellipsis for the Latin stella polaris meaning 'pole star' and has many MANY names. In fact, Polaris is even referenced in old English runes poetry. In the Old English rune poem, the Tiwaz rune is compared to the pole star."
Still humming and sort of dancing his way around the room, Airey stopped midstep with Mr. Barrington's answer.
Ravenclaw say what?
"Come again? What is this...Trenzalore you speak of?" Sweet solstice was he about to be taught something new by a student?!
Still with a very perplexed look on his face from the previous response, Airey turned his attention to Miss Fischer and chuckled. "Would hardly be an END if there were multiple stars now, would it?" HAHAHA. He made himself laugh. "True, but that is not the only thing that makes Polaris special."
AHA! There was the common misconception he was talking about. "That IS what many people believe, but Polaris is not the brightest star in our sky, let alone the night sky. However, your second notion is spot on." So good for you, Miss Duvessa. He was also very pleased with her progress on her star project, but just couldn't say so right now.
Nod nod, slight frown, more nodding. Same thoughts as Mr. Odessa. Some more nodding. "While one could argue that Polaris will no longer be a TRUE pole star, we would have to leave it up to the astronomers and Astronomer Royal of that age to determine whether or not we are truly without a north star." Which could very well be the man standing right in front of you all.
Scary thought?
OH! More pointing. BIG pointing! EXCITED POINTING!
Not an idea that he had thought about, but still a VERY good point!
"YES! This IS a very interesting thing to note! It is almost as though the heavens WANT to assist us in our navigation through space and time, making things easy for us to locate in the night sky." AWESOME POINTS TO YOU, MR. KELLER!
GOOD FOR YOU, MISS WHEATBORN! So the girl really was making the effort and doing some extra reading. Bravo! Or would it be brava? Brava!
"Excellent, Miss Wheatborn!" he applauded the Hufflepuff. "Studies back in 2012 that were published in Astrophysical Journal Letters explained it may be lightyears upon lightyears closer to us than we initially thought." Thumbs up to you young lady!
Aw, look at that. Two Gryffindor lovebirds sort of sharing the same opinion on the same star. They better keep snogging to outside of the classroom though. WATCHING!
"Brightness is not really a factor, but it IS rather easy to spot once you know how to find it," he agreed. Not romantic? Was the North Star supposed to be so? Seemed sort of silly for a guiding star to be romantic. Wouldn't that imply that one's real sense of direction was based on romance? Ew. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaame. "Have you done any reading on the mythologies surrounding the constellation? I suggest doing some reading on the Greek myths of Callisto and Arcas."
POINTING! MORE EXCITED POINTING! "Very good, Miss Dawnsel!"
"Never the south pole," he said shaking his head while still bouncing around a bit. "And to be more specific, it is the star that is nearly in a direct line with the axis of the Earth's rotation 'above' the North Pole."
.........................OBVIOUS EYE TWITCH.
Did the Ravenclaw REALLY have to mention that RUBBISH of a subject in the holy sanctuary that was the Astronomy Tower.
He ceased his bouncing and sort of just loomed over her for a while. "Do not mention astrology in this classroom again, is that clear?" he said in as calm a voice as he could muster. And now he was going to stand up straight again.
And sorry kid, he wasn't going to respond to the rest of your answer. Pity, it had been good too. Should remember that the man despises astrology and even mentions so in his class rules.
Okay. BACK TO BOUNCING AND POINTING! "It IS as far as the night sky is concerned. In FACT," he said while pointing outside - once again to nothing in particular. "...Polaris' name in Sanskrit, dhruva tāra, literally translates to 'fixed star'."
"Actually, Mr. Kinsley, Polaris is ranked number 45 in the list of stars based on their average apparent magnitudes in the visible spectrum as seen from Earth," he said with a small grin.
That question about which star was the brightest was still up for grabs though.
Oh! Look at that! Miss Penelope was being all sorts of clever here! "EXCELLENT thinking, Miss Greenwell. Why not indeed! Based on everything that your classmates have said it is quite obvious as to why it was selected." Clever little Gryffindor right there. Yep.
OOOOOOH! Muggle significance! "Would you care to expand on that?" he asked the quidditch captain, his interest perked. He, of course, knew some bits and pieces, but he was curious as to what the boy would bring to the table. "And it is a part of the 'Little Dipper' which is also known as Ursa Minor." He understood how one could get the two all mixed up. Little and Big. Major and Minor. All that.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE!" Airey sang while shaking his index finger in the boy's face. "Certainly NOT the brightest star." But he had said that several times already, so no need to go into that more.
OH WE WERE BACK TO POINTING AND GETTING ALL EXCITED NOW! "VERY GOOD! YES! In fact I have a chart of this that I will put up in just a second..."
"That is an excellent question, Mr. Branxton!" he said, turning his index finger towards the Ravenclaw to keep on pointing.
But before he really could open his mouth to answer, Mr. Odessa chimed in and explained things. "They do it like that," he said with a nod and a few thumb jabs in the Slytherin's direction.
Hopefully everyone was taking notes on everything because there was A LOT of GOOD information to be had.
"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.
OOC: OBVIOUSLY this took longer than my expected timeframe, but partly that is because you all gave such great answers! So thank you! This lesson will continue sometime tomorrow GMT+9 (roughly 24 hours from now?)
PLEASE ONLY LIST ONE CONSTELLATION. Listing more than one will not earn you more participation points and will only take away from others who wish to answer  And there went all of his classmates. Off to the races with all of the answers that he felt like only google had the capacity to know. He had his strengths when he went to Muggle school, he understood that. English being one of them along with history and math and stuff, but like all of this RANDOM stuff that everyone knew. It was almost google worthy.
Huh. Did Hogwarts have wifi around here? Did wizards even KNOW about wifi?
Puzzling questions.
...
SO Ascanius completely disregarded his question, the sparkly!glitter!Professor!man, and asked a question of his own, "Professor? Does the castle have wifi reception?" It would explain the GPS question he had from earlier. Huh. And with that, he leaned back in his seat and waited. Well, c'mon. He didn't have all day, guy. Answer the question.
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