A new tool

[alt_sinistra]

Students: I’m delighted to announce a new resource.

As some of you know (particularly my N.E.W.T students who’ve been giving me feedback on some samples), I’ve been working for the past two and a half years on a way to project a portion of the night sky and hold it for study and teaching (steadily, without ongoing need for concentration). I’m delighted to say I’ve reached a point where I believe the work is ready for regular classroom use.

Now, this does not replace our observation time (since you will still need to learn how to use your own telescopes and make your own observations). And, of course, no matter how good or how detailed my created images of the night sky are, they do not contain everything: only what I myself knew at the time I made the image. (And thus, it does not include ongoing or emerging stellar events, comets or meteors, or other things of that kind.)

However, I do think it will be an excellent resource in a number of situtations:
- to illustrate a point in class, so you can make more effective use of your observation time.
- to ilustrate more clearly things that cannot readily be seen with student telescopes.
- to make it easier to study or review before tests (both my own exams, and for O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams).

And of course, it will give us some additional options on cloudy nights without completely losing class time.

This option has limits: it takes me at least half an hour to link a combination of charms and create an image for each area, and it can be much longer for a more complicated or detailed piece of the sky. I plan to add another couple each week, until we have a well-stocked library of examples (focusing first on materials of use for O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. students, and then moving on to items covered regularly in the rest of the curriculum.)

Projections can be checked out by permission during hours I’m in my office, and an updated list of projections will be posted by my door each week. My classroom is available for their use, and I’ve also had the house-elves clean out a space on the floor directly below, as the projections are best viewed without distracting items behind them. (You’ll notice a large white sheet hung in a corner of my classroom for this purpose as well.)

If anyone is interested in the theory behind the project, I have an article in the next issue of the Journal of Modern Magical Theory and Experiment that explains some of the details, and I’d be glad to share my copy of the submitted version. Just stop by my office!

Comments

[alt_lana]

Congratulations, Professor. Good show!

How exciting to think that Hogwarts will benefit from such an important pedagogical advance, and how wonderful that you are able to share it with our visitors! They cannot help but be impressed with how richly Our Lord's peaceful reign cultivates a climate in which magic can thrive and in which its practitioners find bountiful support for new research that will benefit us all.

[alt_sinistra]

Thank you.

And yes, I'm quite excited that the timing has worked out so well. I began working on the project over two years ago, when a combination of weather and other considerations made direct observation more limited than I prefer. It's taken quite trial and error (and quite some time, given my other commitments), so I'm delighted to finally have a solution that's truly useful.

I'm very hopeful it will be of great help in a number of areas (and I'm sure there are applications I haven't even considered yet.)

I hope that your own training is continuing to go well, as well. (And as we discussed late this summer, if your schedule does allow a visit on a YPL weekend to talk about your training, we'd love to have you.)

[alt_rabastan]

Careful there. You'll make the rest of us feel as if we ought to be writing theoretical papers or, I don't know, re-inventing the night sky.

[alt_sinistra]

I hope not! Re-inventing the night sky would create a huge amount more work for me, after all.

I've had observation-based papers in the journals before (really, it's the way astronomers tell each other formally what snitch stuff they've found, as students might say). But this is the first project with a great deal of theory and experimentation I've done.

Really, though, it's all about having been frustrated by the weather and other circumstances, and wanting to find some better way than "Now, everyone turn to your third chart, and squint at the labels so we can see that very faint star...." to talk about what we do.

I'm sure you'd do the same if you had the same kind of frustration in your teaching that went on for months.

[alt_rabastan]

Oh, teaching frustrations! I'm still trying to sort out what to do with the 5th years when they've got to tackle Dementors. Was easy enough last year, but what about now? Could call in a favour from Marx and have him bring one in, but I'm not sure the rest of the school would ever forgive me.

Field trips to Azkaban for everyone!

[alt_sinistra]

I shiver just thinking about it, honestly. Last year was quite dire, with them so close all the time, as necessary as it was.

I'm sure there's some creative solution, though.

Private message to Rory

[alt_rabastan]

Can't wait to read your article.




Will I understand any of it?

Re: Private message to Rory

[alt_sinistra]

Oh, love. It's formal language, sure, but not that hard. More a matter of combining charms than anything. (Though did you see the look Acton gave me tonight. Nice change to get it for my own sake, not just on account of you, really.)

If you'd prefer, I can demonstrate - you've seen the results up in my rooms.

Of course, what I didn't say in public is that part of my incentive was so *I* can watch the stars and relax even when the weather's bad. For some reason, am having a lousy time getting to sleep tonight even with that.

(At least it's Friday, and once I make it through tonight, there could be napping, or sleeping in.)

Re: Private message to Rory

[alt_rabastan]

All those meetings aren't still weighing on you, are they? I know all too well what it's like to have to go to meetings and have responsibilities that you don't necessarily want, you know.

Maybe you just need someone to sing you a lullaby.

I do an excellent Celestina Warbeck impersonation. I even have a wig.

Re: Private message to Rory

[alt_sinistra]

I am both delighted and horrified by the idea of you doing a Celestina Warbeck impersonation, just not sure it'd make me sleep better. (Or at least, I can think of other things that would be much more enjoyable in private.)

On meetings weighing on one: perhaps, but we're thankfully in a lull now until early December. (Though I am not looking forward to two days of meetings in December, or having to miss classes to do so, though at least Minerva's been reasonable about it.)

I have trouble getting to sleep sometimes - not all the time, just a night or sometimes two a week. It was a whole lot of work getting last Saturday's project together, and I've noticed it sometimes hits me particularly hard a few days after that kind of big project. Not so much any one particular thing, as much as not being able to relax in general.

And maybe I'm just getting older. The split teaching schedule feels like it's been harder this year at both ends - falling asleep and getting up in the morning. (It was last year, but I thought that was at least largely the Dementors.)

Mum suggested a good shot of something densely alcoholic when I'm done for the evening, but I sort of don't want to have to rely on it, you know?

Re: Private message to Rory

[alt_rabastan]

It's possible that it would give you nightmares after, yes.

Sounds like you get too revved up to wind down, and my Celestina Warbeck impression isn't really so very relaxing. But I think I have another skill or two that have more somnolent effects- eventually, at least.

Glad to hear it's not those meetings still gnawing at you, though.

Re: Private message to Rory

[alt_sinistra]

I look forward to exploring your other skills, yes.

I'm assuming you have other obligations during the Hogsmeade trip, especially given the various security concerns - but tomorrow night?

As to the meetings... well, no promises for December, though it'll be easier to prepare for. Mostly once I'm past them by a few days, it's easier. (Is it just me, or do other people have that desperate fear they forgot something urgent just as they're falling asleep after important meetings?) I think better bedtime reading would help, too, Equinox is not being as relaxing as I'd like.

Re: Private message to Rory

[alt_rabastan]

Equinox is that one about the posh investigators, yeah? Too edge-of-the-seat?

Hogsmeade shouldn't be too much trouble. Not so much as last year ,I don't think.

See you tomorrow night, indeed. I'll be practising that lullaby!

Re: Private message to Rory

[alt_sinistra]

Well, first, it has astrology splashed all over the plot, which is not really my favorite thing.

But it's also got this thing that's looking like a romance, and that is a little too close to other things I'm worrying about wasn't really what I was in the mood for in my reading.

Tonight, though, I am. In the mood for, that is.

(And I promise to be less whiny. My life is really very good, and I'd rather spend time with you doing other things than complain.)