Sophie watched as Tayla browsed through the book she had just gotten out of her bag. "Double star? This sounds lovely!" she thought to herself, smiling and looking up at the sky again. She couldn't wait to see this double star! "Do you think it'll be easier for us to find this swan if we used Little Dipper as a starting point?" Maybe the chart showed something about the distance between these two constellations? Or a book? It sounded simpler looking for it that way, instead of just staring at the sky. "I hope we can find this double star!" She actually wanted to see this double star more than the swan constellation!

Going back to her telescope, Sophie looked through it. She wasn't exactly trying to find the double star, because she thought that would be really difficult, especially since she didn't know how to work with the telescope too well yet. Instead, she just moved it around slowly, observing all of the beautiful stars.

Suddenly, Sophie heard Tayla asking what she liked about stars. She smiled. "They are really pretty and shiny! It seems like they're always so happy and celebrating!" She replied, still looking through the telescope. Sophie loved happiness and loved everything that seemed happy all the time. "What about you?"

Sophie then started alternating the way she was looking at the stars. Like Tayla, she would sometimes glance at the sky without her telescope, and some other times she would go back to looking through it.

"I'm not sure if we can find Cygnus through the Little Dipper, but we can try," Tayla replied. "The double star is the swan's head...If we find that, then it might be easier to make out the rest of the constellation."

Tayla studied the star chart again, thinking about what Sophie suggested. Ursa Minor was somewhere below Cygnus, and to its right. "In this star chart...the tail of Cygnus is the star closest to Ursa Minor that we'll easily see. It's called Deneb and it's the brightest star in the swan constellation."

Turning back to her telescope, she continued. "Hmmm...maybe it'll be easier to look for Deneb first, before Albireo, the double star."

Tayla really wanted to see the double star at the swan's head. She could tell Sophie did, too. But if it were easier to find the swan's tail, then she'd have to look for that first. It would help them find the double star anyway.

Tayla nodded when Sophie answered her question. She really liked Sophie's cheerful personality. "I agree," she replied. "What I like is how mysterious they are. And magical. Sometimes I think stars could even be the source of our magic. But of course, that's just a crazy thought..."

After Tayla spoke, Sophie looked up at Little Dipper once more. If this constellation was below Cygnus and to its right... "So the swan is somewhere... over there." She pointed in the direction that it supposedly was. Hmm... brightest star... that should be a little easier to find then. Well, less difficult, at least.

Sophie started spotting a bunch of stars she thought were really bright. That didn't help... She stared at the star chart for a little while and then looked up to resume looking for Cygnus constellation. Hopefully they would find it soon!

At the Gryffindor's reply, she raised both of her eyebrows and nodded a couple of times. "That sounds interesting!" Sophie had never thought stars could be magical. She wasn't sure if Tayla's thought was crazy or not. "Maybe they-- well, I dunno." She shook her head and continued to look for Cygnus.

"Brightest star... brightest star... where are you?" Sophie mumbled, scanning the sky.

Tayla looked towards the direction Sophie was pointing. "There are just so many of them!" Tayla said. She shook her head, feeling a bit dizzy from alternating between looking up at the sky with her naked eyes and through her telescope.

"I think I need a quick break," she said, taking out her book again and re-reading the page about Cygnus. She furrowed her eyebrows as she read aloud a line from the book. "One of the most recognizable constellations of the northern summer and autumn, it features a prominent asterism known as the Northern Cross."

If it was that recognizable, then how come she and Sophie hadn't spotted it yet? Maybe they were looking too hard. Or maybe looking for just one star in the constellation made it harder. Tayla wasn't sure what to do, but she did think there must be something that could help them find the constellation.

Flipping to the next page, she found an illustration that seemed to read her thoughts.

"Sophie...look at this picture," Tayla said, showing Sophie the page. "The Summer Triangle. I'm not sure if it'll be the same this month but...that triangle might help. Three bright stars...one of them Deneb."

Tayla smiled encouragingly at Sophie and looked up at the sky again. She felt a little like a sleuth trying to put clues together.

Sophie nodded when Tayla said she would take a little break. She kept looking up, trying to find the brightest star she was searching. Her eyes kept looking back at Polaris. She shook her head and concentrated more on finding the other bright star. Maybe if she used the telescope it would be easier to not keep looking back at Polaris. And it would be good to practice! Alright.

She was looking through her telescope, trying to find Deneb, the brightest star of Cygnus, when Tayla read out loud the things about the constellation. Sophie frowned and looked down at her friend. "Summer and autumn? But we're in winter! Do you think we can still find it now?"

She looked at the pages Tayla was showing her and tilted her head a little. "Where's the double star in this?" She pointed at the star that was at the opposite side of the 'line' Deneb was. "Is this it? I thought this was the tail!" Wait, what? "What is this triangle thing??" Gaaahhh, she was getting confused! "It's not part of the swan, right?" She stared harder at the picture, trying to figure it out. She wondered how people had managed to see a swan in those stars when they were naming constellations. "Since winter is the opposite of summer, I don't think we'll be able to see this... triangle thing... will we?" She looked with a confused face at Tayla.

After he located the Andromeda constellation, Messer was searching for his second constellation and he was looking for Cassiopeia. He remembered that the Cassiopeia constellation is visible in northern hemisphere all year long, so it won't be too hard for him to locate it. He was setting up his telescope towards the direction that the first year was sure where he could find the Cassiopeia.

Like he predicted its not that hard to locate the Cassiopeia. The distinctive 'W' shape that formed by it five bright stars was hardly missed. Messer grinned widely when he found the Cassiopeia. He didn't know why but he always love this constellation. Then after 20 minutes watching the constellation, Messer looked at his watch and its time to go back to the common room or he might be late for class tomorrow.

Tayla was starting to get confused herself. She shook her head, took a deep breath, and organized her thoughts.

"Okay...let's review a little bit," she began, opening her book again. "We're looking for the constellation Cygnus, which is a swan. It's one of the most recognizable constellations in summer and autumn - it can be seen from the month of June to the month of November."

Tayla checked herself. It was still late October. So they were safe right?

"Albireo, the double star with blue and yellow components, is at the swan's head. The double star is seen as one by the naked eye, but clearly two using the telescope.

"Deneb, on the other hand, is at the swan's tail - and is one star of the summer triangle. Oh...and don't worry, Sophie. The summer triangle is visible in the evening well until November. It says here, a more neutral name for it is the 'Northern Triangle'."

Tayla nodded as she reviewed everything she had said.

She turned the page back at the photo she was showing Sophie. Pointing at it, she explained. "We can see the triangle clearly right here. Deneb is a part of that triangle and is the tail, so opposite that, here inside the triangle, is Albireo, the double star at the swan's head.

"Can you imagine it? The tail Deneb part of the triangle, then the wings of course, and moving inside the triangle, the swan's neck, and at the end, the swan's head Albireo."

Tayla hoped the younger girl understood. She handed the book to Sophie and looked up at the sky again, trying to spot Cygnus. She didn't think it would take too long to find, now with a little help from the book.

Sophie listened closely and nodded her head bunches of times as Tayla spoke. Constellation of Cygnus, which is a swan. Right. Double star was called Albireo. Right. Deneb is the brightest one, at the swan's tail and it's also one of the stars in that Summer Triangle, which can be called Northern Triangle. Okay. It all made sense to Sophie. That was a lot of information, but each of them kind of had a link with the other, so it made it all a little... less difficult.

"Right, so we can still see all of this..." She said, holding the book Tayla was handing to her and looking at the picture. "...this time of the year. Yeah, I can imagine it." It still sounded weird how people had seen all of these figures in the stars in the first place. The constellations didn't really remind Sophie of any of the animals they were named after.

"I hope we can find Cygnus!" She finally said, looking up at the sky, the book still opened on her hands. Walking to her telescope, she placed Tayla's book over the Gryffindor's bag. Sophie still thought that finding the Swan would be easier if they started from Little Dipper. Glancing once more at the constellation they had spotted earlier, she restarted looking for another bright star a little above and to the left side of Little Dipper. She had just decided they would find Cygnus no matter what. "I bet we can still see it today!" Sophie felt pretty confident.

Messer went back to the Observatory to do another stargazing. He still out of breath when he arrived at the observatory. Its his second time he was there but he still not used by that killing stairs.

Messer put his bag down and took out his telescope. "What to look today?" Hmm.. Its already December, so he set up his telescope towards the south. Because he's kinda short, Messer didn't need to bend too low and looked into the eyepiece before he started observing.

The first constellation he found was Cetus or also known as the Whale. He didn't why they called it the whale. In his opinion the Cetus constellation didn't look like a whale. Messer know that this particular constellation represents the sea monster from the Greek myth of Andromeda but if he's not mistaken its not a whale.

It's December now. Raven back again to the observatory to do star gazing. She brought her own telescope and her fellow astronomy book about constellations.

She set up her telescope and found a nice place to spot the constellations. Then she noticed on her book and looked what constellations that she could see today.

"Aries." she murmured. Then she started to do star gazing. She looked at the night sky with her telescope and tried to find it. After a moment later, she spotted some stars who could make a-similar-cross formation, which one of the point seemed like have a branch and another point looked bendy. That's Aries.

Silvia paused for a moment at the top of the steps to catch her breath, then stepped into the observatory, her telescope under one arm, her astronomy textbook under the other. She couldn’t believe that she had not come here earlier; the place looked amazing! Walking towards the center of the room she stood in awe of the large telescope. She had only ever seen telescopes this large in pictures, never in person. The sign had said they were not allowed to use it without permission, which was fine with Silvia; she didn’t want to mess with such a magnificent object without knowing how to properly use it. Turning around, she made her way over to where numerous star charts were displayed on the wall. They had amazing detail, though Silvia wasn’t very experienced with reading them. She would have to come up another time and try copying some of the charts to study with.

Silvia spotted an unoccupied area on the other side of the observatory. She walked to it, set down her textbook, and began to set up her telescope. Pointing the telescope at a gargoyle on one of the lower turrets of the castle, she took a moment to make sure the focus seemed good. Then she picked her book back up and flipped through it. What should she look at first? she wondered. She skimmed a page, looking for a constellation that sounded interesting. Finally her eyes landed on the Phoenix. It didn’t really look all that much like a phoenix, but then very few constellations really looked like what they were supposed to be, at least in her opinion. She could make out what were supposed to be the constellation’s wings though. The first year wasn’t too sure how to go about actually locating a constellation though. She could easily spot Ursa major and minor and Orion, but that was it. So she located those on the star chart and figured out where the phoenix was in relation to them. Then, setting the book down, Silvia turned her telescope in search of the few constellations she already knew about. Once found, she used them as a guide to find the phoenix. It took awhile, but she eventually managed to locate it. She pulled out her journal from her bag and recorded her sighting.

What next? she thought. Wait a moment; aren’t there supposed to be a few planets visible? Yes, I’m pretty sure there are. It was still early in the evening, so Silvia pointed the telescope lower, closer to the horizon. She was pretty sure Venus was visible. It was the only planet Silvia had ever really seen or noticed before, but she knew how to look for it: very bright and no twinkling. Planets didn’t twinkle like stars did. It didn’t take long for her to find it. “There you are,” she said. It was so much more interesting when viewing it from a telescope than just with the eye. After looking at it for several minutes, she pulled her eye away from the telescope and recorded it in her journal as well. It was starting to get late, so she wouldn’t be able to stay up here too much longer.

Amelia hadn't been up here in the Observatory for a while. But Zayden was off somewhere else and she had decided to start doing her constellation gazing so that she would be distracted and not miss him. It also looked like a really nice night, so that was a plus.

Shivering a bit, she looked around the room and saw all the pictures and charts. It was a really neat room, and she had to admit that Astronomy interested her. But then a lot of the classes here interested her.

Finding a suitable telescope, she headed over to it. Placing her bag down, she then took out her constellation chart. She scanned it over so that she could choose a constellation to look for.

I think I'll search for Aries.

Quote:

Right Ascension: 3 hours
Declination: 20 degrees
Visible between latitudes 90 and -60 degrees
Best seen in December (at 9:00 PM)

She looked at the information she had written for Aries on her chart, and tried to remember how to set the coordinates for it.

Setting her telescope on a random part of the castle, she set her focus properly before she started working out the coordinates. It took a little while, but she finally found it.

She happily started writing in her journal. After this, she was going to go down and see if she could find Zayden again before bed.

Ella walked over to the observatory after picking up the nocturnal from outside Professor Roslund's office. She decided on the nocturnal first as she figured it might be a little hard to figure out the time of night. She set it down gently, grabbing her back with a sigh of relief. It wasn't exactly light and she was happy to have it out of her arms. She then took her notebook out of her messenger bag, reading the homework that had been assigned to the class.

Ella looked down at her grandfather's watch that she always wore and carefully removed it, placing it in her pocket. Alright, now on to the nocturnal... She looked up at the sky with wide eyes. It was a starry night and the sky was clear. Ella was happy about that as she'd need to pick a reference star if she wanted to tell what time it is. She looked for the most visible star in the sky and used that as her reference. Alright, now what? Ella looked down at her notes, checking what she would need to do next.

Tayla nodded as Sophie spoke. "I hope so, too..." She focused on the sky and tried her best to find the constellation. She thought of what Sophie suggested before and what she had read.

After a few minutes, she got a little more excited. "I think I've found something..." Tayla quickly looked through her telescope and back to the sky. She kept adjusting the telescope to see if she was right about what she thought she had seen. "Oh wow...oh wow, Sophie!" Tayla exclaimed happily. "Sophie...I think I've found Albireo! Wow! It's so pretty!" She stared into the telescope and then again to the sky. It was just as she had read. "It's really a double star. Blue and yellow. Come look!"

She moved a little away from her telescope as she stared back into the sky and tried connecting the stars. "And there's Deneb...the brightest star of Cygnus," she grinned, pointing upwards. "Those must be the wings, the neck, and of course the double star."

She quickly took her book from where Sophie left it, opened it to a picture of the constellation, and compared it with what she was looking at. "We've found Cygnus!"

Tayla couldn't stop smiling. She continued staring at Cygnus, imagining it to be a swan.

She was surprised when she gave a sudden yawn. "Oh, sorry!" Tayla laughed softly. With all the excitement, she didn't realize how sleepy she already was.

Still looking south in the region of the sky called the Water, Messer maneuvered his telescope a little higher from the Cetus constellation. Where the Pisces constellation laid.

He looked at the night sky with her telescope and tried to find the Pisces constellation. A few minutes later, Messer spotted some stars which if he combined them togeter it'd look like two fish swimming in opposite directions. There its Pisces. This constellation was not too far away from Cetus, considering Pisces also located in the region of the sky called the Water.

He jolted down some notes before he went back to the common room.

Wearing her Astronomy cloak that professor Roslund had agreed on lending her, Louisa walked out of her common room -which was so close- and climbed the tower further to Roslund's office. It was noon but Louisa had no idea what exactly the time was. She thought that staying oblivious would make her curiosity get the best of her and push her to work harder...? Also it was cheating to look at the clock, heh.

Reaching for one of the sundials, the fifth year continued on to the observatory where she saw a few students huddling here and there. Ignoring them completely, she took a spot where the sunlight was the strongest - well, the strongest in this time of the year, and started unfolding the sundial and 'establishing' it on the narrow table before her.

The Ravenclaw then opened her shoulder bag that was lying nearby, and took her giant Astronomy guide book that she'd borrowed from the library. Flipping through the pages to her bookmark, Louisa stared down at a moving figure. "This is the topview of the Equatorial sundial... " Moving her gaze down to one of the paragraphs, she went on reading loudly, "The hour-lines will be spaced uniformly if the surface receiving the shadow is either perpendicular (as in the equatorial sundial) or circular about the gnomon (as in the armillary sphere)." Hmm... that was... blehh.

After taking a sundial and knocturnal which he called a compass/ruler for himself that stood outside of Roslund's office, Daichi moved up the stairs towards the observation tower. He knew it would be the best place to do this assignment since it was pretty cold outside.

The moment he arrived at the top, he saw a couple of other students looking up at the sky and writing down in their journals. But one Ravenclaw he saw was taking out her sundial and knocturnal thingies and placed them on the table. "Uhm..hey~!" he said the moment he was next to the small table and pointed at the stuff. "Can i..uh.. can i do the homework here too?" Daichi asked, softly biting his lower lip. "I mean with you..i didn't really understand it in class soooo...." he trailed off as he waited for an answer.

As he waited, Daichi observed her cloak and recognized it was the cloak they had worn in class. Looking down, he noticed something was missing. "Heeey!" his voice sounded whiny when he said the word. "No ducky slippers?" he almost pouted as he pointed at her feet.

HMPF! she OBVIOUSLY had NO fashion sense!

Since Amelia already had her telescope ready, as soon as she was done writing about Aries in her journal, she decided to see if she could find another constellation. And maybe at some point later, she might try to spot some planets.

Consulting her constellation chart again, she looked for something that wouldn't be too hard to find after locating Aries. Also, something that was more visible in December.

Finally she settled on a constellation called Perseus. She had never seen it before, so she thought that it would be interesting to see with her own eyes. She looked at the coordinates:

Quote:

Right Ascension: 3 hours
Declination: 45 degrees
Visible between latitudes 90 and -35 degrees
Best seen in December (at 9:00 PM)

Adjusting her telescope now, she searched the night sky until she found it. Then she drew a quick sketch of the constellation and wrote about it in her journal.

When she was done, she quickly packed up her stuff and made sure that the area that she had been using was tidy again before she headed off to go and find her boyfriend, Zayden.

Louisa was deep into reading the gibberish book when GLADLY someone interrupted. She gave the boy a crooked smile, "Aah. Donald duck fan. Yeah, sure, settle down." As in set up your instruments on the table next to her. She even moved her stuff to the side a bit making more room for him. He carried nothing though other than the sundial and the nocturnal. No extra giant books or anything.

Duck feet? Seriously? Louisa let out a laugh that faded quickly when the boy didn't laugh back. Her eyes widened at him and she suppressed the grin, "Oh, you're serious. Well..uhh.. I don't really like posing as a.. d-"ork. "-uck." And hopefully he wasn't about to force her into wearing them LIKE HE DID IN CLASS. Ahem.

"Anyways!" She picked up the enthusiastic tone, "I don't believe I've ever told you my name but you can call me Louisa as we work on this assignment together." It was reeeeally a relief that he was a younger boy. She wouldn't get caught brewing romance if she accidentally touched his hand or leaned to check his sundial position or whatever. HEH.

"I was trying to get a reading from my sundial." She pushed the giant book toward him and pointed at the figure that she'd been staring at, "This is the hour numbers that should be aligned uniformly in all kinds of sundials." Touching the arrow suspended on her sundial, Louisa went on, "This arrow should cast a shadow on the sundial letting us know what time it is during the day. It's called gnomon." The arrow that is.

Louisa paused, glancing at the boy for any signs of mind block or sudden inspiration.

Ella had picked out her reference star, the Big Dipper, and now looked down at her nocturnal. Apparently she needed to align the little spike labeled BD on the inner circle with the date labeled on the outer one...She looked down in confusion but did it anyway, trusting her notes. Then she was supposed to hold the nocturnal away from her with the handle pointing down. Well that was easy enough and she did it with a smile. Finally a step without confusion. Next, Ella needed to look through the little circle opening in the center of the instrument and locate the north star. Well that wasn't that difficult. Ella put her eye up to the hole and looked for the north star, Polaris. She found it after a few moments of searching and smiled. Maybe this astronomy business wouldn't be that bad after all. Now all she had to do was move the pointer thingy-majig so that it pointed to the reference star she had chosen. Well Ella did that and looked down at her nocturnal with raised eyebrows. She was now supposed to be able to tell the time of night but she was still a little confused. She looked at the number under the pointer which was an 8. So that must mean it's around 8 o'clock? She shrugged, recording her findings. She was afraid to check her watch and decided she'd check when she returned to her dormitory and subtract time spent walking there. She packed up her things and picked up the nocturnal, ready to retire for the night.

Alyssa entered the observatory intending to use the Nocturnal Instrument to read the time using the alignment of the stars. Now that she was familiar with using the instrument she quickly aligned the disks to reflect tonight’s date. She decided that she would continue to use Cassopeia's star Shedar, as the reference star.

Carrying the instrument to the nearest window, Alyssa lifted it up using both her hands, held up the instrument in a vertical position away from her with the handle down. She then looked through the hole in the center of the instrument, and continued to moved it around until she found Polaris, otherwise known as the North Star, shining up above her. Remaining in the same position, Alyssa then aligned the long pointer, slowly adjusting it until it pointed to Shedar viewing position should be like this

Once she was sure that she had everything aligned in the correct positions, Alyssa brought the instrument closer to her and read the time indicated by the pointer on the disks. It lay exactly on the first line where 8 was. That meant that it was approximately 8 p.m. Alyssa quickly looked at her watch and had to stop herself from jumping with excitement, when the digits read 8:01 p.m. She had been successful again at reading the time using the Nocturnal Instrument.

Now all she had to do was complete one more time reading, either using the sundial or this instrument, and she would have completed her first astronomy homework assignment. Packing up the instrument into her bag, Alyssa made her way out of the observatory and back to her Common Room.

Selina dragged herself up the steps to the astronomy tower. She had run back up to the Common Room to grab a change of clothes and her warmest shoes. Usually, she could not be seen leaving the Common Room with these shoes on, she had a reputation to uphold and fuzzy slippers did not uphold that reputation. However, she knew that it was going to be a long night because Gideon was going to attempt to teach her some astronomy; so comfort over fashion right now was her mindset.

Speaking of Gideon she had no idea where the fifth year Chaser was. The two of them had walked back to the Common Room together, but had not since seen one another. Perhaps he was running late or grabbing some stuff to help show her the stars better or something to that affect. But where was he?

She sat down near the telescope and looked up in the sky. Big universe out there.

Gideon had returned to Gryffindor tower with Selina after leaving the grounds and grabbing bites to eat in the Great Hall. Though his preoccupation wasn't with appearance, he did make sure he was dressed warm enough for the chilly tower at night. His time instead was in gathering what he believed they might need for their time stargazing, a rolled up star map and notes as well as spare parchment and quills were carefully stuffed in his knapsack so they would be prepared. That being done, he headed out of the dorms only to find Selina had left ahead of him so the 5th year headed down to the passageway and back up the ricketty spiral staircase of the astronomy tower until he reached the observatory.

"There ye are," he remarked spotting Selina already there in confirmation to what he had believed not finding her in the common room. Gideon crossing the circular room and coming up beside his girlfriend. "Not falling asleep yet I hope," he added with a smile as he watches her watch the darkening night sky unaided.

Sophie was scanning the sky eagerly. They would find Cygnus! They had to! Stargazing the whole night just to see one constellation? No way! She wasn't using her telescope now, as she was doing what she thought that was easier: looking for the swan using Little Dipper as a starting point.

When Tayla got more excited and started saying she thought she had found something, Sophie's eyes widened and she looked at her older friend. Oh! It seemed as the Gryffindor had indeed found the double star! "Really?? Really?? You think that's it?" Sophie jumped up and down clapping her hands together and tried to look in the direction Tayla was looking. She quickly stepped up to Tayla's telescope when the girl let her and looked through it. Her eyes grew wider and her mouth dropped open in awe. "It's SO pretty and cool!!" She had the bigest smile on her face. They had finally found it! WOOP!

"Oh! Can we see the Triangle thing too??" Now she wanted to see as many stars, constellations and whatnot as she could. Stargazing could be really fun when you knew what to look for! Sophie had never done that before and was loving it! She looked up at the sky with bare eyes and started searching for the rest of the swan constellation, now that she knew where it was. She could see the Swan's body too! "This is so awesome!" She could now spot the other two stars of the Northern Triangle. Or at least she thought they were the ones anyway.

Selina was in the midst of admiring a cluster of stars directly to the left of the big dipper when she heard a pair of foot steps come up beside her. Not letting her eyes leave the stars she waited for, who she assumed was Gideon, to approach her more closely. When he was finally close enough to talk to her he joked about her falling asleep. Taking that as her cue she looked up at her boyfriend and said, "Nope. I told you that I would stay awake so here I am."

She gestured for him to take a seat beside her and then looked back out at the stars. She tilted her head to the side which resulted in her red hair falling a bit with her motion and then she questioned, "So, Professor... what is on the lesson plan tonight?" In all honesty, she was just kind of curious about the universe in general. She knew only what they learned in astronomy, but the universe was a big, big place and she wanted to know more. That and looking at the stars with her boyfriend was not a horrible thing.