Bay was getting excited now.. he only had two more to go.. looking down at his notes he only needed Neptune and Pluto… scanning the sky's again he started to turn the dial when he spotted one.. he was about to say something out loud but he didn't want anyone else to find it either… he quickly wrote it down.

awesome he was so happy that he found NEPTUNE only one more to go.. come on Pluto!!! where are you.

Since Lux had finished finding all the planets she had needed for the activity, she decided to keep looking through her telescope into space. Professor Flamsteed would approve, she was sure.

Moving her telescope around more, Lux focused the lens a bit and glanced at all the pretty stars in the sky. It was amazing how they were all so very far away, and that lots of the ones she was looking at had probably died out already. Poor dead stars.

Noticing some constellations, she wondered what they were called, but was too lazy to go over to her desk and get her textbook in order to look them up. It was not important really to her anyhow, as she mainly wanted to look at them. Swinging her telescope around more, she kept looking at the sky.

Ian continued looking, disappointed he was having such trouble. Perhaps it was the perpetual haziness he seemed to have developed recently. Everything he looked directly at was getting kind of blurry. It also didn't help that much of his ability to see well in the dark had also 'vanished'.

He pulled his head up and glanced out at the sky again. He saw little light looking things before him, and thought he'd try some more. When he bent over the eye piece, he was greeted once again with a hazy view and not much else.

Bay saw that some students were already finished finding their planets.. looking over at Lux he noticed she was done.. Giving her a "thumbs up" he went back to looking through his telescope.. come on Pluto.. where are you… he was having such a hard time trying to find it.. but then just past the tree line outside he found it PLUTO it must have been it.. he hasn't seen one of those all day.. geez why was it so hard to find.. thank goodness he was finished with this hunt…


Plut gave him a work out.. looking down at his notes he added the last hard planet to find.. looks like he was all done.. yay!!! goo Bay goo!

Ian finally got tired at looking at a hazy mess in his eye piece and decided he would need professional help. He got up from where he was and walked over to the professor. Professor, I can't really see anything. It was an awful time. I started off forgetting to take the cover off the front lens and Ella helped me figure that out. But now that the eyepiece is off, I can't really see very clearly and I'm not sure I will be able to successfully complete this activity. I don't know what's going on with my eyes, but it's kind of frustrating. This was a big step for Ian. He had been raised to be proud of his independence and to admit failure to a teacher was a really difficult step for him. He had already in some way done that with Mr. Kirby, but this was different. This was an actual professor who gave them passes or fails. He didn't want to be held back.

Grace was exited. She loved using the microscope. Though she wasn't too good at it just yet. She hadn't used it that much. But she would get lots of practice at the moment. She beamed as she set it up her telescope and began looking for a planet. She had decided that she was going to look for Neptune first.

Because she liked Neptune. She frowned a little, not knowing where to look. Hmmm. Where was it. Okaaay. Where? Wheree? Whereee? She moved her telescope into a better position.

Oooh. Yaaaay. There was Neptune. "Yaaay." She beamed, noting down where she had found it. She was excited! She liked Neptune

SPOILER!!: Neptune

Quote:

Originally Posted by grace9900

The girl looked annoyed that Annabel had taken her out of the book. Annabel frowned, did she offend the girl? She looked frail and weak. The girl looked up at her, then the area around them and then back on her. The older girl sighed and placed her bookmark in the book before closing it and straightening herself out. Was she annoyed? Was she going to leave? Questions buzzed around in Annabel's mind. Then the girl looked back up at her and managed a weak hello, before introducing herself as Melek or Mel. She didn't look like a first year, so Annabel assumed she was a transfer. " Nice to meet you Mel. I'm Annabel, but many call me Anna. Annabel is too much of a mouthfull ." Annabel smiled friendly at the girl, something that was very un-slytherin. She wasn't going all hufflepuff like her cousin, right? Annabel decided it would be bad to make friends outside of Slytherin, her cousin and the two boys she had met on the train. Mel gestured to a spot next to her and asked Annabel to join her. Annabel graciously took the spot and smiled. Mel told her about being from Turkey. " Please tell me no one asked if it was the animal ." Annabel grimaced at the stupidity of some people. Melek then asked her about where she came from. " Nah, I'm from France ," she said and smiled, hopefully she'd understand now where her accent had came from. Mel tilted her head and looked at Annabel, before asking the dreaded question; is Slytherin an evil house? " History probably disagree with me, but I don't think so...we are just misunderstood. At least I hope, I don't want to be evil! ." " I'm going to guess your in Ravenclaw, because I know your not Slytherin and only Ravenclaws would have the guts to ask something like that. So, if you don't mind me asking, why did you move? "

Looking into the sky meant using his EYES, and Tobias screwed up his nose at that. Really, he should be wearing glasses right now, but he still hadn't told his grandmother the full extent to all this aging stuff, and so talking to her about that was out of the question, and where else would he get glasses. Instead, Tobias resolved to using the spell he sometimes broke out when he really needed it. Once he'd learnt in this very class. It was one he didn't like using often, because of headaches, but dead handy.

The Hufflepuff got to his feet and started towards a nice free space in the classroom, bringing his wand with him and the spiffy looking telescope with him. When he reached the apparatus, Tobias pointed his wand at his eyes.

"Oculo Focalis."

Almost immediately, everything around him suddenly looked a whole lot sharper and more detailed. It was like his EYES were in HIGH DEFINITION. Y'know, not like they're supposed to be anyway or whatever.

It took slightly longer than usual to set up the telescope so that it was at the right height and everything, and Tobias knew he had no hope of being able to focus the thing manually if he wanted to do this in the time they'd been given. For that, he'd use magic as well, even though he preferred to do things manually.

"Lens Focalis."

Okay, that would do for now, and maybe if he had time when he found the planets, Tobias could manually focus it a bit better so he could really SEE. But right now, he was on the prowl for a planet.

Tobias actually started off by inadvertantly finding Polaris. Hello old friend! Too bad that wasn't what he was meant to be looking for. But it certainly helped him out some. Tobias checked the compass attached to his telescope before peering through again, eventually clapping eyes on...

"Neptune!"

He couldn't help the happy exclamation, it was always super weird and awesome to see planets in this much detail. Wow.

Hmmkay, maybe he should edge around the room a bit to find a better angle for some of these other ones.

Ian desondently looked out the window and saw something different. He ran back to his telescope and swung it around in the direction of the wooden bridge. It was still hazy. He used his cloak to try and wipe at the eye piece and smiled. I FOUND SOMETHING! NEPTUNE!

The great planet Neptune

He smiled as wide as he could and swung the telescope around and behold, another! It was HUGE! JUPITER TOO!

Hugeness projected through a lens!

Ian was so excited, he ran (more like hobbled thanks to his earlier sprint and his achy joints) back up to the professor and profusely thanked him. Thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you! It's so very exciting...and I don't even feel the planets gassiness!

Now in a different part of the classroom, Tobias bent forwards slightly and peered through his telescope once again. He saw stuff, sure, but it was more likely to be loads of stars from super far away. Nothing planety in this part of the sky.

Trying his super hardest to very geeeeeently adjust the telescope and slowly scan the nights sky, Tobias tilted the telescope so that it gradually looked more and more in one direction. He found himself looking at a lot of relatively close up stars in a smallish area, and kept tilting the thing slightly north-west, until eventually...

YES! AHA! THERE IT WAS! MARRRRRRRS!

Perfect. So, if Mars was here, and Tobias' deductions and memory of his extra Astronomy studying was correct, he might see another planet quite close by. So Tobias stayed where he was and carefully scanned the night's sky, looking for another planet to add to his list of finds.

Grace was so excited. She'd found pluto. Maybe she was better at using her telescope than she thought she was. Now she needed to find another one. Humming she decided to go and find pluto. Because she figured that would be harder. Seeing as it was a smaller planet. And like. It was a dwarf one right. Smiling, she moved her telescope over to a new area of the classroom. She stopped her humming, so she could concentrate more as she looked into her telescope. Come on pluto. We wanted to find you.

Okaay. Pluto was totally not here. Shaking her head, she moved her telescope over another area of the classroom. Maybe she hadn't been as good as she thought she had. Oooh. Waaiit. She was! She could see it. "Yaay. So pretty." She beamed, wishing she could take a picture of it. But she could not. Smiling sadly, she crossed pluto from her list, before moving on.

Since the other students were still looking for the planets, Sander decided that he would spend the time he had to look for other celestial bodies in the sky. He moved his telescope first to the right, slowly scanning inch by inch of the darkened sky until he found a group of stars that looked familiar to him.

He studied the formation, before turning to his book on Constellations. Sander flipped through the pages until he came to the page where the formation of the stars looked similar to the one he had just identified through his telescope.

Sander peered through the telescope's viewfinder again to ascertain whether the formation was similar and smiled when they matched the one shown on the pages. He had just found the Constellation Cancer, the most famous of the Constellations that could be seen during the month of March.

Bev was glad they'd keep their tiny solar system. From the moment professor Airey brought it up she knew who she'd give it to as a present. It was going to be fantastic; she knows he'd love. He'd better 'cause she worked really hard on it. Eeeep!

Getting back into gear and nodding in understanding, she took a telescope and set about the room for a good spot in which she could pinpoint the planets. Casting Lens Focalis on the telescope and bringing it up to her eye, she peeked out from it. There was no specific planet she was searching for. Getting this done fast was the goal.

Searching the night skies, she doubled backed when she spotted one of the four planets. Or...at least she thought she did. Squinting her eye to make sure, the third year pointed in excitement, quickly regretting it when her arm screamed in pain.

"Oww--I found Neptune." Yes, yes she did. Ha!

The chocolate stuff was doing wonders for her concentration...on the chocolate. Seriously, what was Professor Airey saying? Something about planets and spells and finding them. Oh. Was this the activity then? It looked like it with people already getting up and about.

Lex gave a lazy stretch as she got up then snatched her wand from it's holster as she made her way over to the huge window.

"Lens Focalis!" All good? Crystal clear vision? Seemed that way. Before focusing on the sky, Lex accio-ed her chocolate cauldron. Something to munch on while she worked, then turned her attention to the sky. What was she looking for first...?

What was the point of this assignment? Huh?

Neptune? "Where?" She asked, turning to the person who'd just yelled it at her ear. Cool. Planets. When did those get there? It took her another look up but there it was. Would you look at that.

Two planets down. Two planets to go. That was good by Grace's book. It had taken her a while to find Pluto though. She had really needed a rest after wards. She'd gone as far as nearly taking a nap as she leant against her telescope. But she decided not too. That would not be good at all. She would just go and have a nap when the lesson was done. Smiling, she decided to go find another planet. Maybe she'd find Jupiter now. It was a big planet. So she figured it wouldn't be too hard to find it. Picking her telescope up, she yawned as she made her way over to another new place. Maybe Jupiter would be over here.

Heerree. She hummed to herself, plonking her telescope down, before looking into it. Jupiter. Big planet. Where were youu. Grace frowned, looking into her telescope. Yup. It wasn't here. She shook her head, changing her position a little, to see if she could see the planet. oh. IT would kind of help if the telescope was in focus. She shook her head, before muttering "Lens Focalis" And the lens focused. Andd there was pluto. "Finallly...." She grumbled, leaning up. Her back was hurting now. Ouchh.

Such a nice planet to look at, mhm, from so far it kinda reminded her of NOT Jeffery somewhere out in the big dark blue outside world of space playing with Alice's baby star.

Lex took a bite of her chocolate and looked around at everyone seemingly fascinated with the night sky. Just what were they looking at and how come no one had invited her to look? What if she'd decided to stay firmly planted in her seat the whole time and not have a looksee for herself--not that she was seeing much. Just a bunch of lights in the sky, bless them, helping the moon give light.

And another bite.

Hey. You know, it's a little funny but that almost looked like Pluto right there--no not there, THERE, if only the kid would move his head. Alexa did the decent Prefect thing by shoving the kid's head to the side but gently enough to not cause some kind of neck snapping as it seemed could be the case with half these people.

Theeeere was the not-planet.

One more planet to go. And she was excited. She was doing good. Really good. and that made her happy. She wasn't finding the planets as quick as she had hoped. But she could only get better right? Grace took a little break in between finding the last planet. Because she wanted to focus lots. And she was feeling a little distracted right now. She closed her eyes, deciding to have like 40 winks or something. Not a full on nap. But a little one. So that she would feel ready to find a the last planet. A few seconds later she opened her eyes and beamed. Yup. She was feeling a little more awake now. Though a nap would be good. Maybe she could fall asleep on the floor once she'd found this last planet.

Smiling, she changed the position of her telescope, and began looking for Mars. The red planet. She liked that one. She liked red. But she couldn't find it. Shaking her head, she pulled her telescope all over to the other side of the room. Maybe she would have more luck there. Humming to herself, she began looking for Mars. It was a few minutes later when she whooped, and poked herself in the eye with her telescope end. "Ouchh." She frowned, rubbing at her eye. But she had found Mars! Yaaay. She was a happy slytherin right now.

Nom nom nom.

You know what was sad? Looking up at a sky, not knowing what you were looking for and running out of chocolate. That was a terrible combination right there and the Gryffindor could only relish in the last of her sweet. Did the Professor know it was an inadequate amount to begin with? She couldn't live off that little and didn't think he'd be willing to give her more.

Turning to go find someone else's chocolate cauldron, left unattended she ran right into someone's hand mid-point. "What the kneazle? Tryin'a stick my eye out?" Merlin people these days, and just what the heck was he pointing at anyway?

Whipping around she spotted a dot in the sky...er....more than a dot. Could almost pass for Mercury....no....that other 'M' one....Mars or something like that. Why were people randomly pointing out planets? This was getting kinda annoying and she rather liked her eyesight so it needed to stop.

Benjy had been trying really hard to concentrate. Really hard.

He'd been scanning the sky real closely for those planets, but all he'd found were stars. Lots of stars. At least, he was finding them up until the point that the hand holding his telescope had fallen into his lap, and he let out a massive great big

*SNOOOOOOORE*
...lessons really shouldn't be allowed in the evening if he wasn't allowed an afternoon nap.

Alright. Alright now, she was done with people randomly pointing at the sky and she'd just eaten the last of her chocolate. Know what this meant? Scavenger hunt around the room. Who hadn't already eaten their chocolate yet? Did Lottie want hers? Her bestie was very particular when it came to chocolate. This might have been one of those times when she wanted nothing to do with them. Had she even touched hers? Lex could help, she really could.

The Prefect turned once more to head back toward the seats when she heard someone yelling something about Jupiter? Merlin's beard, could they all stop this rubbish about bloody planets?? Goodness. It was getting old.

Casting a glance back at the sky she DID spot Jupiter, it wasn't that hard you know, not rocket science or something so the fascination was lost on her. Why look at the sky when there were chocolate's on desks? And when would they be starting the activity? She liked planets as much as the next guy but...yeah....

Or was this a stargazing class? Sounded like bedtime to her, if only she slept this early. No. It'd be more like a nap. Not nearly as worth it.

"Hey Professor? When can we start blasting stuff?" Yeah. Waiting perfectly patient for the activity. At no point did it occur to her that she'd JUST completed it. And what WAS that??? Looking around she spotted a familiar Ravenclaw....sleeping. See? HE had the right idea...'cept maybe not right this second. Lex walked over to him and gave him a few well placed jabs with her wand. "Rise and shine."

...huh?

Why was he being poked?

Benjy's eyelids flickered, and he pushed himself up a little straighter as his eyes finally caught up and took in the room around him. And, more importantly, who was poking him right now. "Oi. Whatchu doing?" He flicked his hand at her lazily...only to realise it had a telescope in. Why did he have a telescope?

Hang on... he was in class, right? "Psst, what'd I miss?"

This one took slightly longer to find, mainly because Tobias was getting tired and therefore more distracted by his tiredness the longer he spent at the telescope. It was also pretty difficult to only nudge the telescope a little way; now that he'd inexplicably aged up, Tobias' excess energy was released by weird trembling and the occasional twitch, which was frustrating to say the least.

But he stuck at it, carefully combing the skies and sort of hoping that he'd find another planet too, because his eyes were starting to hurt.

At first, Tobias only saw the edge of it. He jolted in surprise, and then quickly corrected the messed up telescope angle. Now he knew the general direction he was supposed to be looking in, it was a lot easier to relocate.

WOO! AW YEAH JUPITER, DAS RIGHT!

So that was three planets found, and one to go. And that last one?

Oh yeah

It was a little hard to get a view of a planet when she was just looking at randomness. Neptune had been a lucky find, and if she depended on luck then she might stay here all night. So for the next one, she decided to look for Jupiter, the biggest of them all.

Glancing at the chart, the third year decided to move to another spot. She could have turned her back to get a better view, buuut if she did that then it might get stuck like that. That was a no go.

Settling at another window, she held up the telescope to her eye again, searching the skies. Come on, Jupiter, where are you?

Oh!

There. Right on ahead. Sort of. But there!

Two down, to more to go.

In order to search for Pluto, Tobias decided the best course of action would be to shuffle somewhere else. He stood, looked out at the sky, tilted his head and made a few mental calculations, before turning to face the room again.

Toby stood there for a few moments more, apparently trying to calculate the best place to go, occasionally glancing out at the sky and up towards where he'd found his planets already. Then, the fourteen year old gave a sudden, decisive nod, and crossed the classroom to a free spot (though moving very slowly) and taking his telescope with him.

Once there, Tobias got all set up again and peered through the scope, searching for Pluto among the vast space above him, trying not to think of the fact that he could well be looking at infinity. Like, an endless void was right there, right above him, see? He could be looking in the direction of another Toby on a different planet in a whole other solar system, a bajillion lightyears away. Endless Tobys. Endless space.

Yeah. He didn't think about it. Just looked for Pluto.

Tobias was finding the telescope a bit tricky to see through, no matter how much he squinted. Whilst still looking through, Tobias pointed his wand at the thing again.

"Lens Focalis."

Ahhh, ya see? MUCH better! Now he could find-

Wait... was that... did he just see...?

He DID.

IT WAS PLUTO!

"Viva la Pluto!" Tobias exclaimed to himself victoriously, giving a triumphant fistpump as he continued to gaze at his beloved PLANET.

Now that Neptune and Jupiter were out of the way that left her to find Mars and Pluto. She really didn't understand some of the students' being all defensive on Pluto's account. What ever happened to it happened AGES ago and...well, she might not see it as a big deal since her interest lay elsewhere.

But just because of that, she'd make Pluto her next target.

Scanning the skies, she paused several times thinking she'd found it, but no. All she needed was her sight to be getting WORSE. She was already wearing glasses almost 24/7 so she hoped not. That'd mean she'd be blind. Wah!

Concentrating back on the planet hunting, she pressed the telescope closer to her eye. That was somewhat better. And then she found it. Pluto, the one everyone cries about. Hi.

Since he was all done and some students were still hunting, Adi decided he would just browse the night sky. It was so pretty tonight. Was it always so? He certainly must pay more attention to the other nights.

He focused his telescope on a random planet. Nice looking planet. He continued looking through the scope, this time checking out a cluster of stars but he was too lazy to consult his book to see what the cluster was. Ah well. Blame the old age. Yep.

Adi shifted his telescope and continued his casual scan of the night sky.