And then in between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor was supposed to be Draco. Heh, like the name, only this Draco was supposed to be a dragon. A loooong tail of a dragon. Mo tracked back and forth between the two bears... that's what ursa meant, after all, but it was only after checking the text that Mo caught a break.

Finally, he caught the tail end of the tail in the imaginary line he drew between Polaris and Ursa Major. Draco was long and winding, wrapping back around Ursa Minor and ending practically on the other side of the sky. Now... he should already know where Cassiopeia was, shouldn't he?

He traced Draco again to find his way back up to Polaris.

As he looked up at the night sky, Daichi vaguely wondered if the other students were searching for their own star they had raised last year. Not Daichi, he wasn’t searching for Ducky his star because he knew it wasn’t in the sky. Having been sick during that lesson and not able to attend it he had released his star. Poor thing was probably already death. Siiigh.
Realizing that his eyes began to out-focus on the stars, the Slytherin waited before using the spell again and instead looked at the graphic chart. So the Polaris was slightly in the middle and just above it was the Ursa Minor right? With a confident feeling, Daichi used the spell on his eyes and saw how his vision readjusted as he looked up.
He found the Polaris quickly because he now knew where it was and tilted his head up to search for the one above the Polaris. When he finally found the Ursa Minor..or was it major? A quick look at the graphic chart and he saw it was minor… Daichi smiled to himself and crossed out his finding.
Wasn’t Draco nearby?

Cassiopeia was just off doing her own thing. The W shape was actually pretty easy to spot once he recentered himself on Polaris, and Mo had previously used it for the asterism they'd developed in this class last term. He added it to the list he was working.

And ugh. His eyes were starting to burn a little. So much for this spell in everyday use.

Maybe he could still find some of the other asterisms on the list before he needed to take the spell off his eyes. Like... well, what was close to Cassiopeia for starters? That was a reasonable next step. Mo rubbed his eyes as he turned to the chart in his text.

WOAH Astro Man, look at you looking sharp!

… Yeah… he needed to get used to this sudden super!vision the effects of this spell.

Shaking his head, the boy looked at the list of constellations they were meant to find. This… sounded hard, actually. Really hard. Because look at how many constellations were in this list! And sure, they only had to find the ones in bold for now but what if he managed to find the others and not the ones in bold? Would Astro Man be okay with that?

... Probably not.

But they were meant to find Polaris first, yeah? That was the major one? Alec tore his eyes away from the list and looked up at the night sky, a small grin spreading across his face. This... was really awesome! And actually really useful if they wanted to look at stars... sort of closely without using telescopes.

Polaris, Polaris, where are you?

So this was a scavenger hunt to find constellations. Sounded like fun. Nigel liked games for than lecture any day.

Now what was the first constellation he was suppose to find. He quickly looked over the list and saw it was Polaris. Of course it was. It was basically that the lesson was about. Nigel was surprisingly getting use to this charm on his eyes.

Having vision like Superman was pretty awesome. t is only that now he wanted all of superman's powers. He was greedy and he knew it.

Now back to Polaris. Time to find the way to Neverland.

Another ten minutes later, Jory still had no luck. "So much for being a Hufflepuff,'' he muttered, growing increasingly impatient. Weren't supposed to be good finders and patient as well? "Am I ever gonna find this constellation?'' He was not about to give up.

And so the Puffer continued on this tough search. "Is that it?'' he blurted moments later. He looked at his book. The shape was right. Finally! He had found Cepheus! And it only took him about half an hour. Heh. He drew a line through Cepheus in his book.

Okay so... to find Polaris, you had to find the other three constellations that linked with it, right? The Ursa Major, the Ursa Minor and the Cassiopeia one. And HEY, once he did that, he only needed to find Draco and Cepheus to finish of the 'Must Find' list! How AWESOME was this?

VERY.

But... what wasn't awesome was the way his eyes were starting to sting now. As if he had been awake for far too long. Figuring that he didn't need to have super vision to see the list, Alec cast "Finite!" on the charm and blinked as his vision returned to normal. He closed his eyes and rubbed at them before looking at his textbook.

Flick... flick... flick...

Okay, he needed to find some weird W shape and then the dippers and... they all seemed to connect to show where the true position of Polaris is. Alec looked up at the sky and... blinked again. How was he meant to- ... Oh! "Oculus Focalis!" Swish and tap! ... Blink. Much better! Now... W... let's find that W...

Mika was more than glad that this spell had focused her eyes – seriously she was going to invest in some wonderful glasses later…or it could have been her eyes were just tired, so very tired. She squinted a bit and wrinkled her nose and moved her tired eyes a bit – then rubbed her palms against her eyes. All things to try and calm down her eyes. Hey look!

That one was kind of orangey…weird, and then it hit her like a ton of bricks.

She was being silly – so silly! “Mars!” she bounced a bit clapping her hands together in front of her face – actually just hair’s length from her own nose. She had found Mars! Great cause she wasn’t looking for Mars. And the voice!

“Hellooo Professor Elwood” she beamed, and looked almost like she was trying to decipher what part really went were in a Picasso painting then looking at one of her favorite Professors. Then immediately she turned her eyes back to the sky. She spotted something that wasn’t on the list and smiled to herself. Aquila. The constellation that Altair was a part of…and that meant the cape was near here, which caused her of course to search for Zara.

"Zara," she smiled to herself as as she glanced from Altair to the little star she had used as a mapping point in her asterism.

From the chart, Mo figured he should be able to spot Perseus and Andromeda, who were both located fairly close to Cassiopeia. Honestly, in the spirit of balance, it was good to find Andromeda, right? In mythology, she was Cassiopeia's mother, so finding both parts of the same story was like finding both Ursas or something.

A least to Mo's Ravenclaw, pattern-seeking mind. He moved away from Cassiopeia, in the opposite direction from the Ursas, and soon ran into Perseus. And right next to ol' Percy? Was that Andromeda? He sort of thought it was... so it must be. It wasn't like random patterns of stars looked all that similar or anything.

Maybe that was a little lazy, but his eyes were starting to ache so badly that he was eager to remove the spell and put his head down for a while. He blinked until his eyes were practically streaming, and then Mo pointed the wand at his eyelid. "Finite."

And done.

Kace checked his list again to see what he had to look for. Being the list was so long, he constantly had to check it and cross off what he found. Once he was done admiring Draco, he looked at what others he could find.

SPOILER!!: Kace's Notebook

Astronomy stargazing scavenger hunt

constellations
Ursa Major
Ursa Minor
Draco
Cassiopeia
Cepheus

Andromeda
Aries
Auriga
Camelopardalis
Capricorn
Cetus
Cepheus
Corona Borealis
Cygnus
Equuleus
Eridanus
Fornax
Hercules
Lyra
Pegasus
Perseus
Pisces
Taurus

planets
Pluto
Neptune
Saturn
Jupiter
Mars

stars
Polaris
Vega
Deneb
Altair
Pollux

So now he had to find Cassiopeia? Hmm...this was gonna be a hard one. He was scanning the right from draco and was finding nothing....then he looked the left and saw nothing else. Hmm.....he just needed to close his eyes and calm down. Just take scenery. It was supposed to be fun not discouraging. After a while he wanted to ask the teacher...., "Professor i need help finding Cassiopeia?"

Maybe the hufflepuff being good finders was running thin for Kace at a time like this.

Now that she had found Polaris, it should be easy to find the rest, right? Wrong! She couldn't find Ursa Major or Minor for anything! Nor could she remember which one it was supposed the be at the end of. Because Ursa Major and Minor were the dippers, right? If they weren't, then she was in big trouble about now. Sky was pretty sure she was right though. And if she wasn't...

Alec's grey-blue eyes scanned the sky, trying to FIND that familiar W shape. And it was as he was scanning the sky that he noticed just how many loops there were up there! It seemed as if most of the constellations -- or about half of them -- seemed to have some sort of loop in there. ... Odd. Or was it?

He tilted his head to the side, his eyes on a particular constellation up there. That one near the middle seemed to have a lot of bright stars right near it. Like RIGHT there. And not far from that was a bunch of colourful... stars? Or were they plants of some sort? ... He'd have to make sure to have a look at his textbook for this later. Maybe once he had found Polaris because... that was the most important one here.

Okay, Polaris... where are you? The boy squinted slightly, mentally urging his inner Hufflepuff to come out an help him. His eyes scanned the stars a little slower this time, just in case he has missed that W-shape earlier by scanning too quickly. It had happened before so he wouldn't be surprised if it happened again. Nodnod.

... OH HEY. Was that a W? ... Cassiopeia, you have been FOUND! GRIN!

Oh, there they were. Ursa Major and, right by it, Ursa Minor. Tricky little stars. Then again, she was never really the greatest at spotting constellations. Planets, meteors and individual stars, sure. Just not constellations. She had always thought the whole notion was kind of silly anyway. Not that she would say it outloud in this class. And now her eyes were getting itchy again.

Where was Ursa Major?

The blonde Slytherin scrunched up her nose as she began looking around Polaris for it. *She found Ursa Minor again. * Moving north, she found anger clump of stars together but she couldn't discern whether or not the stars made a clear shape. *Hmm.. This task was getting harder and harder by the minute. *But perhaps it seemed to get harder because Jo's eyes were becoming more sore whenever she gazed into the sky. *

Ah, this looked promising! thought Jo as she found a long group of wavy stars that sort of lookd like a tail of some sorts. Maybe this was Draco? Just to be sure, Jo followed the line of stars around until her eyes saw a small cluster of stars that resembled a ring or something's head. It was Draco!. Jo grinned and bcontinued looking in the north direction for any signs of Ursa Major.

Now where could it be hiding?

So now that Cassiopeia had been found, it was just a matter of trying to find the others, yeah?

Alec looked down at his textbook and the diagram in there about Polaris. Okay... so the Ursa Major and Minor shouldn't be too far away, yeah? He took a moment to look at the shape of the Ursa Major carefully in the textbook. And it was right near... sort of near... Neptune? Bright Blue Neptune? Okay... maybe it would be easier to find Neptune first and then the Ursa Major.

His grey-blue eyes looked back up at the sky and he blinked some more. Neptune... Neptune... bright blue... THERE! Right there! Point point. He was sure that was Neptune up there. Remembering what the diagram showed about the bottom of the Ursa Major constellation being on the same line as Neptune, Alec's eyes scanned along until they landed on... a bright star. His eyes then flew further North and he tried to match the shape in the sky to the one in the textbook. Line... join up the stars...

HEY URSA MAJOR!

Okay... so... Ursa Minor next, yeah? The Hufflepuff looked back at the bottom star of the Ursa Major and then started moving his eyes down in the South Westerly direction until... they came across another bright star. One that seemed to form some sort of handle when it was joined up with a couple of the stars right near it. ... Ursa... Minor, right?

So... if the middle of the W shape was joined up with those bottom two points, that meant that Polaris was... right... THERE! Right there! GRIN. Hey Polaris! Nice to find you.

Blink-Blink…she had moved a bit and tried to find something else another star, another constellation. As she had just recently found Ursa minor, and Ursa major she moved her eyes back to that general vicinity. Sighing her rubbed her eyes again and then reopened them in another location.

Just slightly off from where she had been, and just BEAMED. There! She had done it, she had found Cepheus, and right near it was Cassiopeia! She was beaming really beaming because she had found all of the bolded things (and who cared about the other ones). She just smiled, pointed her wand at her now closed eyes and spoke “finite” there. It was done.

She was done with this part of the assignment which was good.

Jo kept on looking north but she couldn't locate Ursa Major. Were the stars playing some sort of trick on her now? she thought and pouted. The blonde continued gazing when a voice popped into her head. The voice of reason. It was chiding her. And oddly enough, it sounded like her old Nanny who took care of her when she was a toddler. Of course, they weren't- stars don't play tricks on people Jo. You're being ridiculous.. The Slytherin would have rolled her eyes at the thought but she didn't because it would have hurt too much.

The blonde ignored the voice and continued searching for Ursa Major. She took a gamble and decided to turn her gaze left- in a western direction. She crossed two fingers on her right hand for good luck and continued gazing. Not too far along the road, Jo came across a large group of stars arranged in a squarish bowl/stove-pot manner. Pursing her lips, she found a tail that was connected to it.

Ursa Major?

Jo thought it was. So she began to look for Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia then Cepheus... Cassiopeia.

W-shapped. Think of a W...

Now that she knew it was going to work at this point, Minerva needed to go back farther. She took a few steps backward, nope could still see it. So she turned and she walked into the middle of the room. That was pretty far to see something. Turning back she frowned, she could still see that last line. So she turned and went almost the length of the room. Turning she smiled, it was blurry.

Good...good..

Now time to tap the eyes.. well closed eyes Min chuckled as she thought. Closing her eyes and doing the wand movement "Oculo Focalis " She blinked a few times feeling an odd strain at first, but then feeling normal. Looking back at her poster almost at the other side of the room she smiled.

Yep.. yep there it was as plain as day that last line very very visible. She rambled the letters to herself and then turned to start the next part of the activity.

Okay... so that was most of the constellations he was meant to find found. Plus Neptune. Which wasn't bad because he didn't mind Neptune, as far as planets go. It was always Jupiter and Saturn that confused him. And Jupiter was the one with the four moons, right? ... Yeah?

... This wasn't the time!

Shaking his head, Alec looked back down at the list. Draco and Cepheus! Those were the last two that he absolutely had to find. His eyes flicked over towards his textbook and the diagram in there again. Okay... so according to the diagram, Draco was sort of surrounding the Ursa Minor like some sort of river. And Cepheus... Cepheus formed a house shape but it was near the Ursa Minor too!

He gave the book a sharp nod before looking up and locating the Ursa Minor once more. And there was Polaris once again! HEY! ... So... Draco. His eyes travelled to the top of the Ursa Minor where the loop was before travelling a little further towards the next brightest star. THERE. And if he joined that up with some of the next bright stars around the Ursa Minor before finishing at a loop... THAT was Draco, right? He looked back at shape in the textbook before looking back up again and grinning. YEP. Hey Draco!

And next... next was Cepheus with its house. Alec looked back over at Polaris before looking straight down towards the next brightest star down. Which... according to the diagram, formed the top point of Cepheus. AWESOME. Point... out... down... across! House! Cepheus! HEY!

... And... he wasn't going to find anymore. His eyes were feeling far too tired from the spell. The guy grinned a little before whipping out his wand and casting a simple "Finite!" on his eyelid. There. ... Except... what was he meant to do now?

Now that she had practiced and had used Finite on her eyes, Minerva looked around. Her blue eyes scanning the room at everyone else finishing up on the lesson. Smiling as she watched of few of her housemates, they seemed to be doing really well. That made her happy and excited for them. She felt like screaming great job, but figured she better not.

Eyes snapping back to the front of the room when Professor Flamsteed started speaking again.. was it her or was he extra loud in here. The man seriously would have been considered hyper active in the muggle world, but quickly abandoned that thought to focus on the instructions.


Looking at the list on the scavenger hunt, Minerva felt a little confident, they had done this before, not this exact activity, but one with the constellations. So she shouldn't have a horrible time at it. Standing she pulled her wand and did the movement she had just practiced a few times, Oculo Focalis Her eys had that same weird strain feeling and then felt normal, but to see through them wasn't normal.

She looked up, WOW look at that sky. This was sooooo cool. She smiled and bounced a bit. First thing first she had to find Polaris.. Easy enough it was the north star, so should easy. Looking around Minerva all of the sudden figured out she couldn't get her direction. Now was she looking the right way? Turning in a circle a few times she started being confused and frowned.. Seriously this wasn't going to be as easy as she thought.

Since she could still read the chart pretty well without the spell, Eliza took a few steps backward. She skimmed the lines from top to bottom. Hmm...okay those look good but....nah, let's go further.

She took a few more steps backward until she finally was struggling to see the middle and bottom lines. That's more like it, she thought as she squinted and blinked at them. Now it's time to try the spell! And...erm, not forget that I cast it on myself - cause I do NOT want bags under my sore, tired eyes.

She swished her wand and lightly tapped her eyelids while saying, "Oculo Focalis!" in a quiet, steady voice. She figured if she said it too strongly, her eyes might go into super overdrive and she'd really be having a headache later. Plus the stronger the spell, the stronger the side-effects right? And she did NOT want super intensely baggy and sore and tired eyes.

Alright. Don't mess with his glasses, leave them off. No problem. Worth knowing though right? West took them off and put them to one side, then put the chart up and backed up, trying to make out the letters.

...

....

yeah okay. Charm time.

Oculo Focalis. Oculo Focalis. Oculo Focalis.

"Oculo Focalis!" He tried it out loud and then because he didn't want to poke his eye out by accident, West practiced the wand movement a few times. Swish and tap. He got his nose the first few times... swish and TAP.

ouchhh. Gentler. Definitely gentler. He kept one eye open and peered at his wand. Okay. Swish and tap. Better. That was better. Now to try the spell out properly. Ahem

"Oculo Focalis!", swish and tap! Left eye done. He opened his right and immediately found himself disoriented, given the difference in focus between his two eyes.... cool. He closed his left eye and then began alternating looking at the chart through one or the other.

Heeeeh.

Airey was finding it hard to stay in one place, even more so than usual and that was saying something. His sweet tooth was aching a bit as well and he was silently cursing himself for not allowing food in the classroom. He could really go for some ice cream right now. Perhaps some of the raspberry ice cream that he and Miss Wisteria had shared in his office. It had been quite lovely.

Since there was none on hand, the astronomer settled for doing some more moonwalking and roboting around the classroom while he checked on students' progress.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazykitty

Still not finding it. She had basically given up on trying to find it on the map. Because difficult map was being difficult. But, turns out that just randomly scanning the skies wasn't helping much either. Then, a thought occurred to her. The Four Point spell! Ha! It wouldn't point her to the star, but it would point her north. "Point me!" Sky whispered, setting her wand in her out stretched palm. Once her wand stopped spinning and pointed, her eyes followed, then moved up. There it was! Now were they supposed to write this down or something.......?

MAN!POUT!STARE.

"Miss Carter-Hope," he said as he stood behind the Slytherin. "You are doing precisely the opposite of what I asked. I will be taking 10 points from your house for your actions. The entire point of this exercise is to learn how to become dependant from magic and navigational devices and learn to use the stars."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonea

“This spell is really cool” said Sonea to her rat, Little princess who tried to climb out of her pocket.

...............what WAS it with Slytherin's today?! "Miss Duvessa, I would appreciate it if in the future you left your rodent in the dormitories. My classroom is no place for them." Let that be a warning to her. Second time he spotted the FURRY creature in his tower would not be glazed over so easily.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanialRadFAN01

The search for Airey was continuing as Professor Elwood approached the Astronomy classroom. Her friend hadn't been in his office and he wasn't in the observatory either so she guessed that he was maybe in his classroom preparing for a future lesson. Wherever he was, he was going to be getting a present.

She hadn't forgotten that his birthday was today!

The blonde opened the classroom door slowly and squeaked his name as she did so, "Aiiiiiiirrreeeeeeyyy!!! I've got a surp-- Oh!" Merlin, there was a class in here. Whoops! Uh...there he was. Elwood quickly stood up straight as she opened the door the rest of the way normally.

"I'm so, so sorry Professor Flamsteed, I had no idea you had a lesson going on. I can just give you this afterwards." She said embarrassed as she held up the brightly wrapped box and card that was his joint birthday and Christmas gift. It was practical too because he needed something more than silk to sleep in. Heh.

Now to leave before she messed up whatever the kids were working on.

GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAN!

While Airey usually was pleased - to a certain extent - to see Calista, now was certainly not the time. He was in the middle of a lesson and her loud and rather embarrassing calling of his name was....awkward.

OHBUTSHEHADBROUGHTHIMSOMETHING!

"Calista," he said with a faint smile as he moonwalked towards her. "Nice to see you out of your habitat...but I would have appreciated the gesture more if it had not been in the middle of my lesson." Or was this karma since he had interrupted one of her's last term? Not that he believed in that sort of thing. Karma was for centaurs and Seers. "But, thank you," he said as he took the box and card, taking a quick peek inside to see what it was for. She had...remembered? That was...a pleasant surprise.

Awkward little boy pause and foot shuffle.

"Since you're already here, you're welcome to stargaze with the students if you wish."

Quote:

Originally Posted by CassiopeiaAKTF

Daichi kept staring at the Professor with twinkling in his eyes and his mouth slightly ajar. They had a famous person's grandson in their class! HOWAWESOMEWASTHAT?!

"Because i was right, can i have some icecream? I want icecream! Actually we should all be eating icecream right now because icecream makes everyone happy! and happy is good , right? right?!" He spoke these words without taking a break and his eyes shifted around in search of icecream.

Famous person grandson or not, when he began to ruffle his hair the Slytherin pouted as he tried to stare up angerly. Which didn't work of course. He didn't liked it when someone ruffled his hair! You know how much work he puts in his hair to keep it styled like that?! He even gets up fifteen minutes earlier to do his hair! And now it was a meeeesss. If a student had done it he would have said something, too bad the Professor was an authority figure so he simply sighed and began to try and style his hair again with his fingers.

HAHA! There was the spirit. "All the ice cream you want, Mr. Katharos. As long as I get to eat some with you because I am wanting some myself at the moment."

Mental note to add that to the list of things to bring to his camp out homework.

"You have about 20 more minutes to practice before class ends," he announced. "Make sure that you are at least able to identify Polaris and the Northern Circumpolar Constellations." All the other celestial bodies were there for a challenge and for those ambitious students.

OOC: Alright guys, I KNOW Peeves has been AWFUL recently. I haven't been able to load anything until, um, NOW since I last posted. So, the lesson will remain open for another 24 hours from this post. I will be posting the homework a few hours from now just to stay on my initial schedule, so do not panic when you see it posted

ALL the icecream he wanted?! Why was he feeling like a little kid again? BECAUSE OF ALL THE ICECREAM!

Honestly, the Slytherin thought he was going to get the icecream right now since he had asked for it and the Professor kind of said yes. So this was why he continued to staaaare and at the famous person's grandson. Sooo..where was his icecream huh?

"Professor? You know what should have icecream as well? The night sky!" He said as he hyperly pointed to the sky above. "Its too DARK and darkness isn't good, everyone should have a happy sky that is light!" Wasn't that daytime? "LIKE DAYTIME BUT THEN IN THE NIGHT~!" Yup, genius. "Also, we should all throw icecream up at the dark sky so that the stars will TWINKLE even more from happiness!"

The Prefect beamed proudly as he looked at nearly everyone in the room before his facial expressions changed just like that and he suddenly turned around to continue his star gazing. What was wrong with him lately?

---

Eyes that looked and felt tired were not a good combination with the use of the Oculo Focalis spell. Daichi found that out soon enough. It was strange though, his whole mind screamed that he was tired but his body just wasn’t listening to it. He was actually more active and hyper than normal as he searched for the stars they had to find and squealing once or twice when he found them.

As he stopped the spell for a moment with “Finite” the Prefect rubbed his eyes and a yawn escaped his mouth. He was tired and wanted to go to bed….but on the other hand he also had this weird urge to jump around the classroom… Mweh, maybe this were just side-effects of studying for your NEWTs exams too much?

"Oculo Focalis!" he said and he looked at the sky as his eyes adjusted his vision again. Having found Polaris and Ursa Minor so far, the Slytherin knew that Draco was close as well. Looking around, it took him a several minutes before realizing it was just above the Ursa Minor and he wanted to slap himself on the forehead.

Say whaaat? Points from Slytherin? West looked up at the professor (with one eye). When had Flammy actually said people couldn't use their wand? Especially because they were using magic to see the stars anyways? He looked over at Sky. Hopefully she'd say something about it, or at least earn them back or something. Ten points was a bunch.

West closed his charmed eye again and went back to his desk, one-eyed. He picked up his glasses and returned to his spot, looking at the poster again. He held up the lens of his glasses in front of his uncharmed eye, and then compared that with the charmed one, closing one and then the other and alternating as he went over the chart. With the charmed one he could read the bottom line eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasily, though he did feel a BIT of strain doing it.

But hey, if it worked that was a good sign yeah? West folded and hooked his glasses in his collar and then got his wand ready. Time to do the other eye yeah? Yeah.

"Oculo Focalis!" He waved his wand and then tapped his other eye... gently, and then opened it, pleased that both eyes were now working with the focus charm since it was less unsettling to have both the same and all.

He looked at the chart again and read out the bottom line. "P... E... Z... O... L..."

He was trying to ignore Daichi being weird. Because honestly, was he five years old? Throwing ice cream at the sky? Was that supposed to be a metaphor for something or just unfortunate stupidity?