Aurora Sinistra (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alt_sinistra) wrote2013-04-22 12:25 pm
alt_sinistra) wrote2013-04-22 12:25 pm
Entry tags:
The heavens this week
Students -
It looks like tonight will be quite clear, so I’ll have the tower open as soon as it’s dark. I’ll also be available for the usual conversation and questions about astronomy and related topics. (Though, you know me. I think everything’s related to astronomy. Come ask why, if you like.) I will be out Tuesday evening for a Guild meeting, but available the rest of the week as well.
The Lyriad meteor shower is currently ongoing - I was up watching for a bit before dawn, and it was not as impressive as some years, but easier to watch after moonset.
On Thursday, there will an lunar eclipse, beginning just before 8 at night. While this particular one is not deeply interesting (being very brief and extremely partial - only about half an arc second will be occluded) it is interesting because it is the last of a saros series.
We do not normally discuss these except in my newt years, but eclipses occur in a pattern, stretching over 18 years (18 years, 11 days, 8 hours, to be precise). We can use the larger series pattern to predict both when eclipses may occur, and what form they will take, due to the interactions of three separate sequences (The synodic month, the draconic month, and the anomalistic month. For the curious, the name of the middle of those three comes from old legends about a dragon eating the moon at the eclipses.)
This is the first series I’ve had the opportunity to observe in full (given weather, of course), but I also have my notes from the last half of the previous cycle (and of course, my predecessor’s observing journals, which cover cycles long before that) for anyone interested in comparisons.
It looks like tonight will be quite clear, so I’ll have the tower open as soon as it’s dark. I’ll also be available for the usual conversation and questions about astronomy and related topics. (Though, you know me. I think everything’s related to astronomy. Come ask why, if you like.) I will be out Tuesday evening for a Guild meeting, but available the rest of the week as well.
The Lyriad meteor shower is currently ongoing - I was up watching for a bit before dawn, and it was not as impressive as some years, but easier to watch after moonset.
On Thursday, there will an lunar eclipse, beginning just before 8 at night. While this particular one is not deeply interesting (being very brief and extremely partial - only about half an arc second will be occluded) it is interesting because it is the last of a saros series.
We do not normally discuss these except in my newt years, but eclipses occur in a pattern, stretching over 18 years (18 years, 11 days, 8 hours, to be precise). We can use the larger series pattern to predict both when eclipses may occur, and what form they will take, due to the interactions of three separate sequences (The synodic month, the draconic month, and the anomalistic month. For the curious, the name of the middle of those three comes from old legends about a dragon eating the moon at the eclipses.)
This is the first series I’ve had the opportunity to observe in full (given weather, of course), but I also have my notes from the last half of the previous cycle (and of course, my predecessor’s observing journals, which cover cycles long before that) for anyone interested in comparisons.
Private message to Cedric Diggory
Also, pass the word, please, that a number of us are glad to do whatever we can to ease any further punishments that go beyond what we would consider acceptable. You can send or bring anyone you’ve got concerns about to - well, anyone other than Professors Acton and Carpenter, Madam Hooch, or Mr Milland. Or Madam Pinkness herself, obviously.
Either we’ll fix it, or we’ll find someone who can do more than we can.
I think Septima was supposed to do one last review session with you on the arithmancy for the astronomy NEWT this week - at this point, I don’t care what Madam Pinkness says, and I’d rather take any extra obligations off her desk right now. Find a time to come do the review with me, if you’d rather? You’ve almost got the last bit, I’m sure, and once it feels solid, I know you’ll feel more confident about the exam as a whole.
In general, I’m done with her telling me what I can and can’t talk about with students. I’d still rather not press her too openly if I don’t have to, but at least am glad to see about helping with anything I can that doesn’t require overt wands.
Re: Private message to Cedric Diggory
I'll pass the word as needed about visiting other professors after visiting Her Pinkness.
I can stop by some time tomorrow to discuss the NEWT.
Re: Private message to Cedric Diggory
Really fine, or 'I'm not the one who needs the most worrying about' fine? I haven't wanted to interfere, but if there's anything I can do about the twins, tell me. Or tell me who to tell.
Tuesday - I'll be out after about 2, maybe a tad earlier, depending on my final list of errands. But I should be back by ten, and up, well. Until whenever. We've a little time yet to sort out the arithmancy, anyway.
Re: Private message to Cedric Diggory
Well it sounds like you are leaving just as I'm returning from the interview with Director Selwyn's department. I'll see if I can carve out more time tonight or tomorrow evening.
Re: Private message to Cedric Diggory
Yes, on that, sounds like. I know it's only a blind for your real goals, but good luck. A little interview practice never hurts, anyway. (And as I know Raz has told you, it's as well to have an idea about what you'd do after you did Quidditch, if they have the sense I hope they do and give you a chance.)
There's also the bit where I'm teaching tomorrow morning, and hope it will go better than today. (My first class this morning was the fifth year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. You can guess how little we got done there, not that I blame any of them.)
I think the thing I'm having the hardest time with - in practical terms, I mean - is how one has to be careful of the HJC members. I'm sure not all of them are as ... committed as Madam Pinkness might like, but that doesn't help much in class.
Re: Private message to Cedric Diggory
The HJC is tricky. The number that clearly feel forced into it, those that overlap with the Prefects. My feelings on its existence make me less than logical on dealing with them. It feels so like a personal insult even though I doubt that's why she did it. I'm not sure what to feel about the fact she just created a new group and didn't try to corrupt the prefects to her purpose.
Re: Private message to Cedric Diggory
She's tried and tried to co-opt us, the staff, and it is no fun at all. (As you may well have guessed.) I'm just waiting for her to ask about whether I'm filling out that - what was it, F329-Q, the future absence form, about the Guild tomorrow. I am not listing 100 names, thank you, and it's none of her business anyway.
I do agree that it's complicated. That there are those who took it as the best of a bad set of choices. I'm so very glad you didn't, and at the same time, I don't blame Linus for bearing with it as long as he did.
I've been thinking a lot - this weekend, but before that - about how some people want to view the world as starkly right or wrong, and some people don't. And I was raised the first, more or less, and working through the second, well. No one makes charts for that, really. It'd be easier if they did.
Private message to Tosha
(As you might guess, from my baiting her above, I am done with letting her dictate what I talk about with interested parties. Also just made it clear to Cedric - in my most Hufflepuff blunt - to pass the word to alert any of those of the staff with sense and care of students about any further punishments of any concern whatsoever.)
I did want to ask, though, what you found about Miss Calderwood. I gather nothing urgent, but my nagging (well, screaming) desire to find some resolution doesn’t want to let any hint of potential get lost.
I am out tomorrow night - Georg moved the Guild meeting from Thursday to Tuesday because of the eclipse and it being the last of the series. Do you need anything in New London? I'm glad to oblige with errands.
Re: Private message to Tosha
I'll catch you up with the details on the conversation with Miss Calderwood as soon as possible -- nothing conclusive, sadly, but her story definitely does not add up. Well, we knew it wouldn't, but there are several inconsistencies to begin attacking. When we've a moment to breathe, mind you.
And actually, yes, if you wouldn't mind stopping by Poundtree for me and picking up my shelf -- it's been paid for, but many of the items are not the sort of thing I'd like sent through owl post at the moment, even under seal.
Your,
T
Re: Private message to Tosha
On Miss Calderwood, good to have confirmation, really. I guess the thing I want to try and understand is why. Is it... does she...
Though. You're right. Talk in person, please, whenever we manage that next? It's still too touchy for me to be startled with it here.
no subject
For the record, I wish to apologise for some of my Ravenclaw mates. I have every hope that we can restore the atmosphere of attentive studiousness for which we are usually known, and I pledge as Prefect to do my best to help all of us achieve that goal.
To that end, might I possibly borrow one of your projection stones this evening? While the second-years I have in mind showing it to are not the Ravenclaws who made class so trying this morning, it is possible that calming part of the House may have a salubrious effect upon the whole. Therefore it is my intent to have a little calming star-watching late this evening in one of the dorms for a few overstimulated persons. (The firsties will of course be with you for their class, so they'll get their fill of stars and be properly tired out, one hopes.) Stars are calming, are they not? It's worth a try, anyhow.
I shall bring it back to you promptly in the morning, of course.
no subject
Under the circumstances, I would have been far more distressed if you all were anything other than distracted. This is why I build extra time into our review plans and offer additional sessions as well. And in the meantime, expect you to need some time.
Your thoughts about the projections are excellent. Ten points to Ravenclaw. Come up after supper, and I'll find you some we don't need for exam review.