The heavens this week

[alt_sinistra]

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.

Comments

Private message to Cedric Diggory

[alt_sinistra]

Still thinking about our chat Friday night, but so very glad you told me what you did. You doing all right? The sett was unsettled, but managing, when I stopped in last night.

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.

Private message to Tosha

[alt_sinistra]

Sorry I was rather absent yesterday - when I wasn’t down in the sett, I was sorting things out in my head. This weekend, what Dolores is doing is intolerable.

(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.

[alt_linus]

Professor Sinistra?

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.