He had the Big Dipper in sight. Max adjusted his telescope ever so slightly to ensure he had the constellation fully in focus. Yep, all good.

Next, he moved the telescope slowly upwards, following an imaginary line towards... Aha, there it was shining brightly, Polaris!

He wished they could use the telescope to try and find something cool, like aliens, but oh well. Satisfied with his findings, Maxton took a step away from his telescope and waited for the Professor's next set of instructions. Fingers crossed it involved aliens.

So they be a-hunting for the North Star eh? Awesome! And looks like the Prof will let them use telescopes too-- which is cool, but he didnt think he'd really need one, at least not yet anyway. What he needed to confirm was where North was standing from the Astronomy Tower.

He secured a telescope, then used the compass to get it to point at the right direction, positioning himself so he would be facing that way too. Then just by plain sight, he stared at the skies for a while until he could find something that looked like a measuring scoop or a weirdly shaped rat. He found them both almost at the same time, and immediately spotted where the North star was. Hehe simple.


He was just grabbing his parchment when he heard his name called, glanced up to see Zita looking all clueless and asking for help in the most Zitaesque way possible. Yeah he figured as much, but he still wanted to help because she asked for it. "Sure thing Z..." he shifted nearer to where she stood and immediately realized her telescope wasnt even pointing upwards "Well... unless you're trying to peek at the locker rooms, your telescope should be pointing this way." he grinned, swinging the telescope upwards and pointing North. "There. Polaris should be within the telescope's field of vision. Try to find a cluster of stars that looks like theyre outlining a measuring scoop. Thats the Small Dipper. The very end of that handle is a very bright star, thats the North Star." Should he say anything about the Big Dipper? It wasnt quite as obvious as the Small Dipper then again if he said anything about finding a bunch of stars that looks like a bear, or a rat, she'd be even more confused.

Fifty-seven?! There was no way he was writing down all of those in these notes. Maybe if it weren't so late at night, but still probably not even then. Nope nope nope.

So Polaris. Yawn. Like, literally yawn. But also, this was his fifth year in astronomy, so he wasn't too excited about it, either. Plus it was only the 50th brightest, so not super cool. But he had seen photographers that left their lens open for a long time and actually captured other stars moving around Polaris, and that was cool.

Off to a telescope went the tired Ravenclaw. He located the Big Dipper with the naked eye first, then he lined up the scope and found it within about fifteen seconds. That was always going to be the easy part. Finn located the two stars that Kennedy had mentioned and practiced moving his telescope in small, parallel movements. He occasionally stepped back and got his bearings without any aids as well, trying to figure out how many stars he had to pass along the way before he reached his destination.

First try, here we go. He moved the telescope along the line of the two stars, but he quickly got off. Second try... he made it farther, but again he knew he had left the necessary path. Finally on the third try he made it. "Er... no. That's not Polaris, actually." He stepped back and could immediately tell his telescope wasn't pointing at the correct star.

One more time, but this time it actually was successful. Didn't Kennedy say we needed to do this a lot later? Finn decided he needed to practice a few more times. But this time around he did it three times in a row. He had definitely gotten the hang of it now.

As requested, the Claw stepped back from the telescope to write his method. But since he had used the same one the professor had described, there wasn't much for him to do. He'd already gotten it in his notes before he started, so instead he dug through his bag for another piece of gum, hoping the mint would do its job and keep him alert.

Fifty Seven was a LOT. Bel wondered how many were in the north and how many were in the south but she was too distracted to ask because of the professor's explanation about Polaris. Wow. So Polaris was right in the middle? There wasn't a star like that down south.

Okay. It made sense to her. She was going to give it a go.

Bel went over to a telescope and began eagerly looking through it.

Looking.... looking....

.... only......... she didn't know what the Big Dipper.... the plough, actually looked like. So... um.

....halp.


Was it in one of her books maybe? The hand of a clock didn't help her all that much without a visual. Bel pulled back after about ten minutes of looking and went to her textbook to try and find it.

After returning to her seat, Emmalyn took out her parchment to jot down the notes. She wasn't exactly sure what to write, so she winged it.

That was going to have to be good enough. Plus, she didn't plan on being alone and lost at night. If she did find herself lost, she'd probably just wait until someone found her.

You know Bel had been expecting the Big Dipper was something like The Pot, just... a line of stars. Three stars maybe. Enough to make a line or the hand on a clock, so finding that it was supposed to be an asterism shaped like a scoop had her going 'ohhhh!' as she looked at the page. That changed everything. And then Polaris was part of another dipper. Okay.

Bel wrote this down and then went over to the telescope again. This time armed with the information of what to look for, she looked at the alien sky and in a few minutes found the plough, and followed it to find The North Star. Hmm it was pretty bright. Okay. And Polaris there.... yeah it was part of another dipper, the Little one! Yeah! This brought on a slight victory wiggle as she stood at the telescope, then Bel pulled away abd returned to her notes.

Quote:

Finding North with Polaris
First I had to figure out what the Big Dipper looked like because it did not look like the hand of a clock. Once I knew what it looked like (a really deep scooper spoon) it was easier to find it and then follow the instructions about tracing an imaginary line from the asterism to Polaris. And then once I had Polaris I had North. So basically the finding north thing is only useful if you know what the asterisms or constellations that are part of the process of finding it actually look like in the first place.

There. Done. Right? Hopefully she'd been right. Bel also drew a quick diagram of the stars in question on her parchment.

.... and then drew the stars that were required to find south too. Back home.
Sigh. Hooooome.

Kalen checked his watch and clapped his hands in order to get the students attention. “All right everyone, I hope everyone has a good idea of how to find Polaris.” He said as he wove through the desks towards the back of the room. “If everyone could follow me?” He said as he waved his wand at the back of the room, and the wall seemed to disappear to reveal what looked like a maze, made out of tall hedges. The room had no ceiling, so the Sky was clearly visible.

“Now, we come to our main activity, inside this room is a maze, and as you can see the room has no ceiling so you’ll be able to see the sky.” He explained as he looked at the maze. “Now in order to make it to the center of the maze, you’ll need to go north. So I want you all to make sure to use Polaris to figure out if you are going North, if you keep Polaris in view, you’ll reach the middle of the maze easily.” He said with a grin.

“I don’t want anyone to use their wands or a compass, I want you to use the North Star and try to navigate your way through to the middle. Once you arrive in the middle, you’ll find a pillar with a golden cup, touch it and it will bring you right back here. The first one back here, will get a prize.” He said with a grin. “There are several entrances along the front, so feel free to go in any one.” He smiled at them.

“All right, if no one has any questions, off you go!” He said as he stepped back so they could all enter the maze. “If you get lost, send up some sparks and I’ll come get you okay?” He added as he leaned on a desk.

OOC: Hey Guys! Welcome to the main activity! It’s pretty simple, have your character navigate through the maze using the North Star as their guide. The hedges are about 7 feet tall, so they won’t be able to see over them, nothing will jump out at them or chase them, so don’t worry about that. First one to get to the middle, touch the cup and get back to Kalen gets a prize! Have fun! You have about 72 hours for this! If you need help, put Professor in the title and we will come help!

Mini activity catch up is allowed!

THE BACK WALL JUST DISAPPEARED AND REVEALED A MAZE.

"Whoa," Daehyun couldn't help but mutter under his breath, his eyes widening in awe. How awesome was that? And he was suddenly very excited about the activity, even though he had no sense of direction whatsoever. At least he knew where to locate Polaris, so maybe he could end this without needing to be rescued?

Choosing an entrance to the maze at random, he walked in and took a few turns at random, his eyes glancing up every once in a while to make sure he was still following the Northern star... until he'd realized that he was getting farther away from the middle of the maze that was their target.

... and soon enough, he was out of the maze through a different entrance from the one he went in through.

...

Her smile grew as he came closer, [b "Oh you are so sweet, I just get so confused by all those stars."[/b] As he noticed that her telescope wasn't even facing the sky she couldn't help but giggle, "Oh was that where it was pointing? " She glanced in the direction and noticed the lockerrooms, this was information that she should try to remember, could come in useful.


Brushing her hair back over her shoulder she leaned in and looked through the telescope. "Right where the telescope is pointing?" She looked at the stars trying to figure out where it was. Soon she squealed with delight and clapped her hands, "I see it, I see that dipper you were talking about." Standing up she grinned at him, "You are so helpful and brilliant." Leaning back down she looked at it again.

Soon as she heard the professors voice she stood to listen. He wanted them to do what without their wands? She wasn't good with the star stuff. Soon she was twisting her hair and touching the head boys arm, "Ace..." she said as cute and whisperish as she could, "do you think we would be allowed to work together, as partners in this."

It was a maze. She knew something like this was coming, but had hoped she was mistaken. All she could picture in her mind were the little mice running around the mazes in charms class. Maybe there would be a cheesecake treat at the end for them?

Emmalyn entered the maze and felt very small. The seven foot high hedges towered over her and she wasn’t even sure if she could see far enough to find the north star. The rules seemed fairly simple. No wands, that wouldn’t be an issue since she could hardly perform any spells as it was, and no compass. That one was a bit harder, but not too bad. She only needed to find her way to the middle of the maze, not all the way to the other side.

She watched as several of the older students took off before her. She thought about trying to follow them, but figured she would fall behind and get lost anyway.

She looked up at the sky to try and pick out the north star. Once she decided on one, she headed off into the maze. Only a few feet in, she came to a fork in the road. The star seemed to be to the left, so she choose that direction.

Aha, he knew it! There was definitely something fishy about how the professor had arrived, and now it was finally revealed. And Finn was actually really impressed with the size of the hedges. Professor Kennedy had clearly put a lot of effort into getting this maze ready for them all.

But Finn was slightly confused. They just had to keep going north by finding Polaris. All those times he had practiced with a telescope. Were they seriously supposed to lug those things around the maze with them?! After watching several people take off without one, he decided the answer was no. So then why were they practicing with the telescopes instead of just there eyes? He shook his head to clear his brain, which was clearly not putting things together at this time of night.

So which entrance..? It probably didn't matter, and he honestly had no good way of knowing which route was shortest from where he stood. After a quick glance down each one, he decided to just go with the path that was closest to where he stood.

Onward!

Aaaand just like that the wall was gone and... there was a maze? Well, that was cool. And Natalie was intrigued. Mazes weren't her strong suit, but she knew where the north star was and she didn't have to use magic, so that made it easier, right? And there was a PRIZE if she got done first! That was incentive enough.

Without waiting much longer, Natalie went into to one of the entrances and began to maneuver through the maze, periodically looking upward to find the north star. But you know, it was tricky to follow the star when the maze kept twisting and turning and sending you back to where you came from. But still, she pressed on.

The second he entered the maze there was a noticeable temperature difference. The hedges blocked the breeze, so the warmth he gained helped offset the light blocked by the shrubbery, which plunged him into a much deeper darkness than he had expected. Finn took a deep breath to adjust himself to the new setting, then began to plow forward.

Almost immediately he ran into a fork. The Ravenclaw briefly explored both directions, but noticed that one turned back much faster. After a few twists and turns he had sufficiently lost track of north, so he stopped, found the Big Dipper, and put his arm up to simulate a line. Where are you.. Gotcha. Fast, efficient, and he was back knowing where he was. That meant that he should take.. "That one." He turned left and kept going.

Oh thank Merlin that was over. Jessa shot up from her seat the moment she was no longer required to sit and listen while her classmates kept sprouting stars at her nevermind that it was at Mr. Kennedy and she was merely listening. Once the class took on a more practical approach, the Ravenclaw was officially in her element and far less likely to drift off into her own world.

Funny enough, she'd have never thought to use her wand to locate polaris. To improve her vision, sure as there was a spell that essentially turned the lenses of your eyes into powerful telescope lenses, but the act of finding the star itself? Nah, that was much too easy.

Even without the man's instructions, it seemed like she'd already known how to find polaris for a while.

Jessa waited her turn at a telescopes. All it really took was a swing of it upward to find ursa major. Frankly, she didn't even need the telescope to find such a well known constellation but when she did locate it, the young girl looked to the end of the pan, the one opposite its handle and from there drifted over until she came to the bright star.

There, polaris located.

That done, the Prefect headed back to her seat to scribble it down.

SPOILER!!: Parchment

Found the big dipper then moved over from there.

That....was basically all she did. Sorry if he wanted her getting more technical about it.

Okay, well that was pretty impressive.

Max's blue eyes widened when Professor Kennedy made the wall vanish to reveal a MAZE. A maze with really tall hedges that they had to go inside using only the north star to try and navigate through.

The Slytherin gulped silently and rubbed the back of his neck already feeling slightly anxious about this. He wasn't a huge fan of practical tasks such as this and was quite satisfied with simply studying the stars with the telescope.

What he went in and got so lost he didn't come back out!?

Slightly dramatic, maybe.

Maxton moved slowly toward the entrance of the maze, glancing around at his classmates as he did so. Maybe he could just find someone to follow...

Well that was certainly an interesting addition to the classroom. Jessa tilted her head at an angle, looking over to the room that held the maze but no ceiling--unless there was a ceiling but it was charmed to display the night sky. Both very plausible, just look at the ceiling in the Great Hall.

She supposed it didn't really matter which route Mr. Kennedy had opted for, polaris would still be up there and as long as she kept it in front of her, she'd likely find the centre.

Not being one to focus on external motivation most of the time, the man's promise of a prize did nothing to make her feet move faster. She would get to the middle when she got to the middle and if she felt like getting lost a few times before that then it was likely she was going to get lost a few times before that.

This, of course, wasn't a result of her being willful but rather Jessa wanted to enjoy making her way through the maze. It would be harder if she was solely driven to get there first and never took the time to just breathe.

The Ravenclaw stepped closer to the maze, noting how high the hedges were. How thick were they? How many exits did this maze have? Two, at least....or actually, more than two as there were several entrances. But what happened when they got further into the maze? Jessa turned to face the man. "Mr. Kennedy, are we allowed to blast through the hedges or climb to the top of them if we become overwhelmed?" Very very very serious question before she even set foot inside.

Zita sees it. Ace beamed back, happy that he could help her out, but perhaps was more relieved that he didnt have to move in closer proximity to her that would unnecessarily get his girlfriend stressed. Or himself. Or Zita even, because hey Vi is not a bad shot if she really wants to hit something.

Prof Kalen spoke and as Ace looked up the back wall disappeared. "I knew it!" he murmured to himself as he fistpumped the air, seeing the maze looming before them. So just use Polaris to find the center of the maze? That sounded simple enough....

.....but now Zita wants to tag along.

"Ermm..." he looked around, trying to locate Vi, because starry skies and exploring maze-like places was their thing. But Zita asked for his help and well, he had a duty to. "....Sure Z. Just follow me." he smiled as he began to walk forward. Juuuust trying to keep her from taking his hand and goodness knows what the gossip columns will say about that sheesh.

He looked up, took a few second to orient himself at this position of the room and found the North Star. Good thing he went to find this first via plain sight eh? Getting familiar with a star via telescope can be quite disorienting when just using your eyes. Good luck with that telescope kiddos.

There were several entrances along the front, so Ace decided to find an entry point where he could follow the North Star dead ahead. Finding the entrance, he looked back to Zita to see if she was still there "This way" he nudged his head at a particular break in the hedge and walked forward.

It wasnt long before a long wall of a hedge stood in their path. Should they turn left or right? Ace angled his torso to try to see which side had the closest break in the hedge and he couldnt see any, at least not from where he stood. They would have to walk several paces either direction to find the next break.....

Emmalyn felt as if she had been in the maze FOREVER. She was hitting one dead end after another, and even found herself back where she started twice. All the stars looked the same and the ones she did think looked a bit brighter, and were obviously not the right stars to be following.

Her feet were starting to get tired and there seemed to be no way to the middle of the maze. “Hello?” she called out, hoping someone would find her and show her where to go. She sat down, at her final attempted dead end, and leaned her back against the hedge. The smell of greenery filled her lungs and tickled her nose. She closed her eyes and imagined herself back home in the woods near her house. A place she would love to be lost at that very moment.

Okay. Time to try again.

Since he'd managed to get into the maze and get out through another entrance/exit, Daehyun picked another one at random, and focused more on the turns he made this time around. He would make sure he didn't take too many left turns before turning right, and at the same time, he needed to let himself be guided by Polaris, too.

... though he'd come to a dead end.

He turned back and retraced the last couple of turns, before focusing on a new trails... but he wasn't getting anywhere. He felt as though each time he stumbled into a dead end, he'd just go around in circles. And unlike the previous time when he was close enough to the exits, he felt like this time he was lost in the middle of the maze.

Just, you know, not the right middle, which was their target.

So THAT's where he had come from. Kye watched as the wall decided to go away for a little while, and before her were hedges. At least it was a fairly controlled environment..? Kye listened to the directions, having just thought about using Point Me. Well there went that idea. Not that she couldn't find the North Star, and hopefully a bit quicker than before class had started. Kye chose an entrance a little to the left and looked again for Polaris before actually entering.

Once she had spotted it, she decided to go in that general direction. She was starting to feel like her mouse must have in Charms class that one day... Poor little guy. Well at least he got cheesecake at the end of it. Was their prize a dessert too? Because Kye was fine with that. And here it was. Her first dead end. Kye had to think for a minute to remember which path she had come up, and go down the other one. She changed course, and hoped to find an opening come up to her right somewhere... there was one to her left, should she skip it? Maybe... She tried to make a mental note, and ventured to the first opening on her right.

It was a straight shot for a little while which could be good or bad. I should probably be taking a left soon... She stopped to gaze up again, having to follow the dipper to Polaris again.

He said to follow him and Zita didn't have to be asked twice. She moved to go behind him and went into the maze. Did everyone see though? She tried to glance, but not make it noticeable, yes Zita was going in the maze with the head boy, eat your heart out girls and girlfriend . What went on in the maze stayed in the maze, yes? Following right on his heels she looked up as they walked in.


"How do you even know which is the big star with all of these without the telescope?" She was looking up but wasn't giving too much effort in really finding it. "You said a spoon thing was near it?" She knew he called it the small dipper, but if she seemed totally clueless he would continue to help her and that's what she was trying to pull off.

They had to FIND the north star? And do it like muggles? She wasn't sure when she would ever have to do this, ever - but she supposed it probably WAS a useful thing to learn. So, as instructed, she moved into position so she could get a good view of the sky and she looked up. First she had to find the Big Dipper - easy. She found it within like, five seconds. So then she found the two stars, Dubhe and Merak, and followed an imaginary line with her eyes up, up, up and...there it was! The North Star! Oh, that was actually a lot easier than she had anticipated.

She picked up her telescope, and using that, found the star again to make sure she really had it engrained in her brain.

So it wasn't that difficult of a task, if Skylar was being honest; she had to find TWO constellations on her owl exam. Almost gave her an edge compared to the other students since the Big Dipper was easier than other constellations. Before she got to looking, she took down a few notes about the stars between the big dipper and polaris; mainly making notes about Dubhe and Merak, as they were the pointer stars.

She was slightly confused as to why they needed to use telescopes when these stars were all something that one could find with the naked eye and actually the telescope would make things more challenging by adding the something extra in there. Stepping up to one of the telescopes, she peeked through the eyepiece and without much difficult found the two bright stars as part of the bigger dipper. Easy, really. Stepping back from the scope, once she had found the two stars, she scanned the sky and found it just by looking up at the sky without the scope. Now time to move along the line, which she took her finger and pointed at the two, drawing an imaginary line and there it was, just like Kalen Professor Kennedy said it would be.

....

And moving on to the next part of the activity. o.O What was up with Professors being all EXTRA and showing off their skills with fancy magicked classrooms? Because Skylar had to admit she was super duper impressed when the wall that Kennedy had 'walked through' earlier, hadn't ... actually been a wall?

Also, mazes? She was comfortable with using Polaris to navigate her way, but her eyes scanned for any lingering baby snakes, who might not have been...

He kept going. Left, right, left again. Periodically he checked for the location of the Big Dipper. "Follow the line... there it is. Found you, Polaris. I guess I won't turn here, then."

Finnlay was amazed at how quickly he got disoriented within the maze. He felt like he was checking for north at least once per minutes. He knew he was wasting a lot of time by doing this, but frankly he didn't have a choice. And the prospect of winning the prize was awesome, but he didn't think it was likely.

And yet, was there something shiny around the corner..?

Why was there a maze here?

Shera had struggled enough trying to get used to the places she frequented often within the castle without taking into consideration a maze. And that hadn't involved trying to navigate with a star. But hey, she supposed it could be fun. She'd followed Daehyun into the maze, but quickly lost sight of her friend. Glancing up at the start she wondered how exactly she was meant to follow something above her.

Oh well. Eyes back in the maze she began following the corridors around. Every now and then her eyes shifted back up to the star, but still wasn't sure where to go with it. Especially since it still took her a few seconds pause to look up and relocate the star. Giving up on it entirely, she just went for it, running down another maze corridor.

Dead end.

Oops?