Astronomy ~ Lesson One ~ First Years

Colin relaxed into his seat, and looked around the empty room. It was time to meet his knew batch of first years. He felt glad to have started the new year from the very beginning this time - now he would have a full grasp and control of the room.

Taking out his wand and placing it on the edge of the table he put his feet up on the table as well, and waited.

Kirsten stepped into the Astronomy Tower, and felt a surge of happiness that waking up several minutes earlier today had paid off; she was the first to arrive to the lesson.

She noticed the Proffessor at the front of the room, looking quite laid back and relaxed. She smiled warmly and said shyly, "Hello, Proffessor. How are you?"

She took a seat in the front row and spread out the necessary items for the lesson, eager to start learning.

Colin sighed as he saw he only had one student. He didn't expect any of the others to show up. It was how these things usually went.

"Well... Miss Cresswell, it looks as if you may be the only one of your classmates to appear for our lesson," he said after a moment, pulling his feet down and leaning forward on his desk, "but I do not wish to waste anymore time waiting on them."

"So Miss Cresswell, what do you know abour astronomy? Let's just see what we've got to work with to get the ball rolling."

Kirsten gulped when the Proffessor announced that she was most likely the only student for this lesson. Now she couldn't hide behind anyone, and her mind went completely blank when Proffessor O'Brian asked her what she knew about Astronomy.

A wave of cold, unsettling nerves washed over her.

About to say It's about stars ... and stuff she bit her tongue, internally scolding herself. You know this stuff she thought, just remain calm, think, think, think ... it will come back to you ...

"Astronomy," she began, "is the study of the stars. It includes sky observation and learning about the planets and their movements. I believe there are around 88 constellations ..." she trailed off, hoping she'd answered the question satisfactorily.

Just as she was about to close her eyes in shame, a fact she had read in The Stars and Their Wonders: Volume I during the course of her light Summer reading popped into her head; "It is said that the human eye can only see about 3,000 stars, but in actual fact there are an estimated 100,000,000,000 ... and that's just in our galaxy." She smiled. Now she was getting it! "And, light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach you, so that means you see the sun as it was 8 minutes ago. I mean, it might have blown up 4 minutes ago and you wouldn't even know about it!"

Now she was blabbering. She stopped abruptly and blushed, looking up shyly at the Proffessor to see if she'd done well.

Colin gave the girl an indulgent smile as she began spewing all the information that she could remember about the galaxy with a level of excitment that reminded Colin, in some cases, of himself.

"That is very true, the sun could go out, and it would take us a fair few minutes to know it," he agreed, "However - it is unlikely that the sun will go out any time soon. Of course as a star it will eventually die; do you, by any chance, know the estitmate of how long until our sun does go out?"

(Note: the plot of this forum does put us about three decades - give or take - in the future; so anytime answer you may want to adjest to fit that. I always forget such things so I thought I'd give other people the reminder as well )

Her normally sleek brown hair in a wild disarray, Isabel sprinted into the Astronomy tower, and her heart fell. The girl she had been seeing a lot was the only one there, but she and the professor were already deep in conversation.
"Hi..." she said, voice barely above a whisper, as she willed away the urge to throw herself off the edge of the tower. Yet again, she had been late.

Colin looked up at the new arrival.

"Ah, more students," he called with a small smile, "Normally I would feel the need to take points off for your tardiness, however, as you can see I am in desperate need for pupils, so I just want you to answer a question for me."

"What do you know about Astronomy?"

Isabel blushed horribly. Astronomy? The only thing she knew about Astronomy was the constellations and the planets her mother used to show her when they took walks outside.
"Well, Astronomy is studying the stars and planets and stuff," Isabel cursed mentally. And stuff? That sounded stupid. "Learning about how the planets move, and the constellations. There are a bunch of constellations, like Canis Major, the greater dog, which comes from the word canine and major, meaning big, then Canis Minor, the lesser dog. Corona Borealis, the northern crown, Corona Australis, the southern crown, Leo, the lion, and Orion, a hunter, which contains this massive star, Betelgeuse." Isabel finished her explanation, and smiled nervously up at the professor.

"Very good Ms. Vector that is a very basic but accurate account of Astronomy.

"I don't know if you are aware but Astronomy is actually one of the oldest arts. For years and years people have been fascinated by the night sky. The study of it - which is what Astronomy - has been going on for eons. Do either of you have any guess to how long it has been going on, or what it is about the sky that could have attracted humans so?"

Isabel raised her hand, determined to prove herself to the professor.
"I don't know how long it old it is, but what's probably attracted people to study it could be their curiosity to know about the skies, or something simple as thinking the sky was pretty and observing it."