Private Message to Professor Sinistra

[alt_evelyn]

Professor,

I'm frightfully sorry, but I'm feeling under the weather, and Gran wants me to stay home today, so I won't be able to attend your salon. It's nothing a bit of Pepper-up and rest won't cure, but I am not at my best, and Gran is putting her foot down, and if you've ever met her, you'd know that once she's made up her mind on something, it's best to not put up a fight.

I was very much looking forward to coming as it sounded quite interesting, and like such a wonderful opportunity. Will there be other meetings this summer?

I hope you and Professor Lestrange had a good Easter weekend.

Sincerely,

Evelyn Longbottom

Comments

[alt_sinistra]

Miss Longbottom -

Sorry to hear you're doing poorly. I certainly wouldn't dream of disagreeing with your Gran - she has quite the reputation in some circles.

We are talking about a few more events of this kind, for a general audience, maybe one this summer and then more next school year. There'll be the usual Guild lectures at the summer Guild hall, too, but those are much more technical.

That said, if you were interested, at least one of the planned projects is something that you might be able to enjoy, with a bit of reading about things you won't have covered in class yet. (It's looking at observations of the planetary moons.)

We did have a pleasant weekend, thank you, and I hope you and your gran and your brother had the same.

A.S.

[alt_evelyn]

Professor,

We did have a very pleasant Easter indeed. Thank you.

And moons! I would certainly be interested, yes. I remember you mentioning once that sometimes things like moons are so small that we can't actually see them, but we know they're there because of planetary orbit patterns. I think that's just fascinating. I'd love to learn more. And I'm glad to hear you're thinking about additional sessions.

If you need an extra hand with any of these upcoming events, I can only imagine how much work it takes to put something like this together, and I'd be happy to help, even if it's just something small like sending out invites or helping to set up the space.

Thank you again,

-Evelyn

[alt_sinistra]

That's true about the moons. It's also true about binary stars: sometimes we can't see the star itself, but we know it's there, because it crosses in front of other stars we can see.

But the moons are even more complicated than that, actually. We can only see most of them because of some very complicated telescope design that allows us to focus on the moon and not all the other things that might interfere, being between us and the planet and its moons.

It's a highly specialised use of both arithmancy and astronomy, basically describing the moon by arithmancy and then creating a telescope that looks only at that one thing and filters everything else out. (Hogwarts has telescopes for about ten of the moons, so we can study them in class, but of course the Guild has a complete set.)

We barely go into that part at all in class and even the project this summer is only going to touch on it. One of my good friends in the guild focuses on making telescopes, so I've picked up a bit more over the years than most people.

I appreciate your offer, too. It's often handy to have someone who doesn't mind that kind of thing, or can be relied on to hand out programmes or what have you. I'll certainly remember to ask.

[alt_evelyn]

Please do, Professor.

And I'm very much looking forward to this summer as well.