Patrick lifted his head. It was time that he had to focus in otherwise he'd fall asleep and loose points. That was not something that he was willing to do just yet. He really wanted to put that off until he still wasn't considered an ickle by most of his classmates. Hearing Professor Kennedy's question he thought it over a second as he began to write down celestial navigation on his piece of notebook paper on his desk.

Raising his hand waiting to be called on, trying his best not to blurt something out. Agreeing with his classmates, Patrick nodded his head. Finally he was getting called on. "It's using the sun, moon, or the stars to navigate the way. Before people truly knew where every mountain and mole hill were they often used this. But don't they still kind of use it for ships?" he questioned thinking about the muggle movie pirates of the Caribbean and titanic, the one his Mama liked the best.

Zarina was continuing to doodle in her notebook when she heard the Professor move on with the lesson. She perked up her head and heard the first question. Hmmm celestial navigation? Zae heard his other classmates and agreed with them. It is sort of thing she would say. She figured she didn't have much to add on the subject so she said, "Yeah what they said..." she gestured to her classmates.

Also isn't celestial navigation used back when if you were stranded in the wilderness somewhere and they needed the stars to guide you home? Like the north star is the brightest? Zae didn't know if this was true. She didn't want to share her nerdy thoughts so she continued to sketch some more.

Skylar glanced up at Patrick's greeting and smiled over at him. No, no, she didn't think it would be at all like DADA, but before she could say as much, it seemed as though the librarian slash astronomy professor walked right through the back wall. Huh, was that a secret door? Of course she knew this Kennedy to be very mysterious and seemingly knew all the best hiding places. Maybe she could get him to show her a few more that she didn't know of soon. Perks of dating a Kennedy, maybe? Not that she'd tell him her motives, but well, he was a teenager once.

Right. Focus, focus. Finishing touches on something? But before they could speculate too much, he moved on to start the lesson with the first question on Celestial Navigation and well, REALLY ZORYN?! Okay so she might have won the battle, but Skylar was totally winning the war, because Celestina Warbeck? Yes was a star, but had absolutely nothing to do with this topic, except the different use of the word star.

A lot of her peers seemed to skim around the basics, but there was so much more to it, because well, obviously or they wouldn't be having a lesson on the topic. "It's also known as astronavigation," Skylar began, but that wasn't all, because first years would know that. "It's the use of angular measurements between celestial bodies and the visible horizon to locate one's position in the world. It uses the latitude and longitude of that point and is known as the celestial's geographic position. These positions change yearly too...."

Oh, there he was.

She supposed that made stepping back out with the intention of returning in five minutes no longer a possibility. What a time to not have a time turner, eh? She'd be back in the second it took him to come through the wall--if that's what he did. For all she new he might have been disillusioned or found a way through the anti-apparition charms placed around the castle. She would hope it wasn't the latter. It was never a good sign when others starting poking through security measures. It meant it was entirely possible and the school wasn't nearly as secure as they were being led to believe.

But that was a spiral for another day. Celestial Navigation seemed the topic of the night's lesson. "Point me's a good charm if you wanna give celestial navigation a shot." While they were on the topic.

"It's not at all for the otherwise directionally challenged. Reckon it can get pretty disorienting if you don't already have some idea of what the positioning of the celestial bodies actually means." Could you imagine the bloke that saw the sun rise but didn't know it did that in the east? Or the midday sun when you couldn't REALLY tell which way it was going or coming from and your shadow was flush under your foot. "Might be better to get a compass or a kneazle." What with their uncanny sense of direction and all. She wonder if the one she animated would retain that sense.

It was something to add to the study.

So the minute he'd realized the professor was absent, Finnlay had tensed up. Was this Defense all over again? Were they about to be attacked by dummies? He considered casting some sort of revealing spell, but then again, this was astronomy. It was highly unlikely rogue telescopes were about to charge them or anything like that. So instead he'd simply taken a seat and grabbed out a stick of mint gum to help keep him awake.

And other than the fact that the professor seemingly appeared through a wall, it turned out that there was nothing unusual about the whole thing. And the topic seemed normal enough as well.

The annual Muir family vacation a few years back had been to London. They'd gone to the observatory in Greenwich and there Finn had learned a lot of cool things. "Sir," he said, hand extended, "Muggles have used the stars to help them keep track of where they are as they sail across the ocean for centuries, but not so much anymore with all the fancy satellites and GPS and all that." Some of his relatives could barely get anywhere without them anymore. "But they also used the locations of the stars and planets, along with knowing the periods of their orbits, to end up solving the problem of how to figure out longitude while at sea!" His father had spent an entire hour in one room of the tour alone, reading every single sign and studying every single chronometer. The rest of the family had not been amused.

Ooooh, time to pay attention. It was late and Natalie was on the verge of falling asleep (as usual). Astronomy was very interesting to her, but she was a SLEEPY young girl, so midnight activities and classes were a struggle for her, you know?

Natalie yawned and desperately hoped that celestial navigation would prove to be interesting enough to keep her awake. "I imagine it's just using stars and constellations to find your way," she offered, echoing what most of the other students had said.

He had to admit the Professor coming out of a seeming blank wall got him waaaaay more curious than he should, and started to suspect that the wall may not even be there. Did this room look any smaller than when Flamsteed was here? Now that he's thinking about it, it does seem smaller. Then again he was also about half his size now.

He pulled his attention away from the wall enough to hear that the discussion revolved around celestial navigation. Oh right, he's heard about this, having a port across his home had its advantages, when sailors talk shop this came up in the discussions... and the jokes that followed ahem.

"Celestial navigation were most frequently used in the maritime and aviation industries, using the heavenly bodies as a point of reference to determine their position in the skies or in the seas. Before other automated equipment, they frequently used a tool called a sextant."

Oh there he was. Bel watched the professor go to the front of the room and wondered what these final touches were. Interesting.

And that question. She perked up and put her hand up. "Professor, that's using the night sky, and also the position of the sun during the day to orient yourself in the world! Its a kind of wayfinding which has four steps, orientation, route decision, route monitoring, and destination recognition. Back home as part of our astronomy classes, we go out in canoes to an unmarked location in the South Pacific and we have to use the stars to navigate back home, like what the ancient peoples of the South Pacific used to do and how they found and settles all the islands of Polynesia! Well, I didn't get to do that yet because I wasn't old enough, but the older kids did it for their end of year exams! They had marine astrolabes, sextants, and marine chronometers to use too, but it was mostly about using the positions of the star in the Southern night sky, and the sun during the day, to work out where you are and where you want to go." It was pretty bonza really, and Bel's voice went a little wistful at the end there, realising she wouldn't get to do that, now that she was here instead of back home in Aussie.

Oh no. Not homesickness in the middle of class. She took a deep breath.

Celestial navigation... Wasn't that, as the other students had said, navigating by the stars and celestial bodies? Hearing what Bel had to say about the Southern night sky made Vi sigh and a small smile creep onto her lips. The Southern Sky was beautiful. Nothing in the northern hemisphere could do its beauty true justice.

And speaking of sextants as Ace had mentioned. "Professor, celestial navigation involved angular measurement. Using a sextant, sailors were and are, if they'd like to---
they are able to determine their location through the positioning of celestial bodies and the instruments," she added. Were they going to be using such instruments today? Hmm... Intriguing.

Did the Professor just walk through a wall? Rylee blinked several times and even rubbed at her eyes. Had she missed something here? Whatever was going on it was pretty cool. Raising her hand she wiggled her fingers at the professor in greeting along with giving him a sleepy smile. It was the best she could manage right now. Perhaps as the lesson went on she would wake up more.

Celestial Navigation. Celestial had to do with things in the sky like the sun, moon and stars. Navigation was all about finding ones way around. So putting those together clearly meant using the sun, moon and stars to find ones way. Everyone was saying that though. Rylee was going to let them do all the talking while she pulled out a clean sheet of parchment and her quill to take down some notes. Note taking was important anyway so might as well focus on that.

Astronomy. One of her favourite lesosns. Harriet loved nothing more than coming up here, and seeing the stars, and learning lots of new things. She had noted that it was pretty warm in here, and she was hoping that she wouldn't fall asleep. She didn't want to miss any of one of her favourite lessons. So she would try really hard to not stay away. She thought about the professors question. Whilst she loved this lesson, it didn't always come naturally to her, and so she had to think about the answers. She wrote some notes down, of what her peers were saying. She noted that they had said a lot of things, and she wanted to make sure that she wasn't going to repeat anything. She really did not see the point of repeating the same facts her peers had already said.

So she just smiled, and nodded her head in agreement with what everyone else was saying. Hopefully that would be okay, since she didn't really want to waste anyone's time by just repeating someone else. But she did make sure to note down everything. Just to make sure she had a good set of notes.

Ah yes class was beginning! And as could be expected, the professor started class with a question. Although similar to what many were already saying, Kye's hand was raised. "Celestial Navigation, to my knowledge, is when you use certain constants... let's say the Sun, a constellation, or something like that to find your destination... I know sailors and pirates are known for using it mostly. I'm not sure the difference or variation between Muggle and wizard use though. "

Did that sound dumb? She wanted to make it known that she was familiar with the concept, but that was probably the extent of it... she wasn't well established in the art of celestial navigation personally, but that could change depending on what their lesson was going to be today! One thing Kye wondered, was if wizards commonly used celestial navigation or did they tend to opt for quicker ways such as the Point Me spell?

"I really doubt we're going to be covering old, dead and boring singers in Astronomy, Zoryn," was Ronan's automatic response to the Quidditch captain. A response that he normally wouldn't have made (not to a fellow lion, anyway), but the lack of sleep caused by certain recent events was affecting his brain (hello? Giant red hawk on the clock tower anyone?)

Also, he was used to people appearing as if from nowhere by now, thanks to both his cousin and Apperation class, soo.....

As for the actual topic of conversation, he really had nothing to add. So, he simply took notes.

Kalen put his teacup down on his desk after everyone had answered and he stood up from his leaning position and looked at all of them. “Those were mostly all excellent answers. As so many of you have said, Celestial Navigation, also known as Astro Navigation, is the ancient and modern method of something called position fixing. Basically it is finding where you are in the world using angles based on the sun, the moon, planets or stars and the Horizon.” He said with a smile as he moved around the room a bit.

“A sextant can be used as well, but there are other methods such as using your arm.” He said as he walked around to the board.

“Now there are several stars that are “navigational stars” as well as one main star used for navigation, does anyone know any of these Navigational stars? ” He asked as he picked up his wand and wrote “Navigational Stars.” On the board and then looked back at the class, waiting for anyone to answer.

OOC: Thanks everyone for your wonderful answers! We will be moving on in about 24 hours ish!

So, she was partly correct. That was better than completely off topic, but there had been several responses that were far better than hers. All of her studying before class didn’t seem to be helping. She glanced down at her parchment in hopes something would come to mind. Surely she had read at least one thing about Astro Navigation.

“There is one star that’s the easiest for use to see, the sun. I would guess that to be an important one.” She scribbled Sun? on her parchment. “There is a North star too, right? That’s the other brighter one.” She scrambled to add a few more, hoping to get one or two correct. “Is there a South star? Oh, there could be a star for each direction. Although, I’m not sure I could pick them out.”

Emmalyn was fairly confident that the sun and North star were important, but those others started to sound rather silly after she said them. That’s when she remembered constellations. By the time those came to mind, another student was already responding, so she just jotted down a few of the names she could remember on her notes.

Oh, navigational stars... he wasn't very familiar with them, but he did know the most popular ones, so his hand shot in the air to answer. "The main star should be Polaris, or the Northern Star," he said. "There's also Sirius, which is very bright. Vega is another bright one that can be used for navigation."

He remembered reading about them in the textbook... but he couldn't remember all those names. In order to do that, he kept his quill ready, and listened for other answers that he would jot down next to the notes he'd taken from what the professor had told them so far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MunchyBubbles

Kalen put his teacup down on his desk after everyone had answered and he stood up from his leaning position and looked at all of them. “Those were mostly all excellent answers. As so many of you have said, Celestial Navigation, also known as Astro Navigation, is the ancient and modern method of something called position fixing. Basically it is finding where you are in the world using angles based on the sun, the moon, planets or stars and the Horizon.” He said with a smile as he moved around the room a bit.

“A sextant can be used as well, but there are other methods such as using your arm.” He said as he walked around to the board.

“Now there are several stars that are “navigational stars” as well as one main star used for navigation, does anyone know any of these Navigational stars? ” He asked as he picked up his wand and wrote “Navigational Stars.” On the board and then looked back at the class, waiting for anyone to answer.

Ooc: Thanks everyone for your wonderful answers! We will be moving on in about 24 hours ish!

She was on the right track and that was good enough for her as of now. A lot of people seemed to know more than Natalie did... but she didn't really spend her free time reading astronomy books. It turned out that celestial navigation, or astro navigation, was a bit more complicated than she realized. Angles with the sun and moon and other planets. Hmm.

There were navigational stars... What were they? Natalie raised her hand. "The North Star is one, isn't it?" Because everybody knew where the north star was, right? Everyone used that as a reference point.[/COLOR]

Ah yes, excellent answer which was exactly what she was going for, so Skylar was pleased. But moving on to talking about navigational stars and yes, the sun she knew to be the main one as two first years had mentioned. Along with talking about Polaris, the northern star. But there were like fifty-seven other stars that were utilized for navigation too.

"Two other stars in the northern hemisphere that can be used for navigation are Vega and Capella, which are actually the two brightest northern stars." Skylar explained.

Whatever, clearly Celestina was the only star that actually mattered here. So by default, her answer was the best one.... whether or not Professor Kennedy agreed with it. She didn't actually care about what he thought anyway. Nor did she care about what some dumb boy had to say.

"No one asked you, Ronan," she retorted in response to the boy's RUDE comment. Seriously, had she asked for his opinion? Nope. The Gryffindor gave him the nastiest eye-roll she could muster.

He ought to show her some respect, she was a quidditch LEGEND at this school (or would be after the end of this term, anyway). And the fact that Professor Kennedy just let him say stuff like that?? Without any sort of punishment?? Um?? HELLO??

They were both stupid. Both Professor Kennedy AND Ronan Carter.

She opted against answering the next question because clearly her creativity was unappreciated and Professor Kennedy didn't care to shut down bullies.

Points for him for at least not mentioning Moana. Cause lets be honest all of his friends back home had little sisters running around screaming about how they were going to sail the seas and return the heart all summer. So to get the right answer he felt pretty good. Now it was about what were some of the most notable stars. "Well, I know of the North star like others have said, but isn't Rigel also one, from Orion?" he was really wondering if they were going to be measuring stars or getting to find something later on around the castle. There was no telling what Professor Kennedy may have them do.

She was there, of course, Zita was there. She was always there,
but she was lost. Why was this class so confusing at times. She liked the stars, but why did it have to go further than just looking at them and saying out pretty they are and maybe a snuggle with someone while doing it?

So instead of actually trying to answer Z just sat there and let everyone else answer the first question. She nodded and act like she was paying attention, but really she was just watching everyone else. She was looking at their shoes all those awful uniform shoes and thinking about how they would look so much better at school if everyone could just wear their own style of shoes.

So, for now, Zita was looking at shoes and not having a clue what was going on in class.

Stars that you could navigate by...? Well the others had said the North Star and ones that were more familiar in the northern hemisphere... But what about the southern one? She pursed her lips, thinking about what her father had told her when they went on an overnight bush walk with her cousins. "You can use Hadar in the Southern Sky to help navigate," she suggested. "Knowing where the brighter stars are in the sky could perhaps help you determine your location?"

Scarlett didn't understand it. She felt like, the more she studied, the stupider she got. She didn't remember what exactly what she had studied in her astronomy books while prepping for NEWTs, but apparently none of it had stuck. None. Not a bit.

Except ONE little bit, apparently.

Her hand shot in the air in excitement. "The North Star is used to help muggles navigate. I, uh...don't know exactly how but they used it wayyyy back when they didn't have technology, and if you're in a jam you can still use it," she explained.

Again, she wasn't sure HOW but she knew it was...possible.

So he had actually been on the right track, which was awesome. Plus he was fairly certain he'd seen his professor laughing at the Celestina Warbeck conversation, which was just funny on multiple levels. So all in all, a good start to the wee hours of the morning.

Finn was busy scribbling things in his notebook with his pen (because he still liked those better than quills). He stifled a yawn behind his other hand, hoping not to let Kennedy see. Finnlay understood why classes were held at night, but that didn't mean he liked it.

Kennedy's question had been pretty basic. Most of the class should have already known the answers he was looking for, really. And lots of them had already been mentioned, so there was no point in saying them again. He simply added them all to his notes, hoping he correctly remembered which column they belonged in.

Shera was... impressed? by Daehyun's response to the question. How did he know any of the answers? That was her current main question.

Sighing internally she let herself sink down in her seat, trying not to attract any attention as she waited for a question she could actually answer. Or an activity. Activities were always fun and she was up for doing something, otherwise there was a chance that Shera was going to tune out despite her best efforts at paying attention.