The Harry Potter books are full of school scenes where Harry brews potions, learns to fly, and practices spells he'll use against Dementors and Death Eaters. The one class that never seems to be important is astronomy. The classroom itself, the Astronomy Tower, serves as a location for three memorable moments. Harry, Ron, and Hermione bring Norbert there for Charlie's friends to pick up in the third book, watch Hagrid arrest in the fifth book, and, most memorably of all, the Astronomy Tower is the setting of Dumbledore's death. But though the class setting makes it a convenient location for Harry to get a bird's eye view or clandestine rendezvous, the actual class taught there isn't worth the fuss. The very existence of this class begs questions about the practicality of the Hogwarts curriculum and what it means for Harry's daily life.
This Class Meets at Midnight
In the first book, it's mentioned that Harry's astronomy class is scheduled every Wednesday at midnight. In Harry's fifth year, he has an astronomy final scheduled for 11 o' clock at night. Sure, it makes sense that a class requiring stars and darkness would meet in the middle of the night. But, what does this mean for their school schedule? A bunch of eleven-year-olds are getting back from class at 1:00 a.m. at the earliest, and then they have to wake up and eat breakfast the same time as the rest of the school. I can only hope they don't have any morning classes scheduled the days after that so they can go back to their dormitories and nap.
Holding class at night means it must be totally normal for students to walk around the castle at midnight. Harry never runs into astronomy students when he's traipsing around the castle in his invisibility cloak. Granted, they could be only hanging out in the Astronomy Tower and whatever hallways connect that tower to the common rooms. But if it's normal for students to walk around the castle at night, that begs the question of why Harry has to do so clandestinely. Couldn't he just tell Filch he's on his way back from astronomy?
They Only Ever Learn Jupiter
From the Harry Potter wiki:
Toward the end of the (first) year, Hermione was quizzing Ron on Astronomy. Their studying included using a map of Jupiter. It was noted that the studies on Jupiter continued into later years, when Harry tried to learn the names of Jupiter's moons in his fifth year of study at Hogwarts.
Their fifth year exam has a section on Jupiter too. There are a couple of times throughout the series where they're filling out star charts, but the only planet they study is Jupiter. Yes, yes, I know there are more stars than planets, but planets are closer and you'd expect them to come up once in a while. Jupiter must be fascinating if they can study it for five years without moving on in their education.
They Will Never Use This
Unlike real high school, a lot of what Hogwarts kids learn in required classes is directly applicable to their real lives. Harry takes Potions; he learns how to brew polyjuice. Harry takes Defense Against the Dark Arts; he learns expelliarmus for when he's fighting Voldemort. Some classes are less useful. McGonagall is a dear, but I can't think of a time when Harry used Transfiguration outside of class. Most Transfiguration spells are ridiculously specific, like turning a teapot into a tortoise. But there are still situations where a wizard might find themselves in possession of too many teapots and not enough tortoises. Astronomy is entirely useless.
It's Not One of the Useless Electives
In her third year, Hermione enrolls in a great number of fluff classes. Tell me, when did she ever use arithmancy outside of class? Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Divination, Muggle Studies, and Care of Magical Creatures are electives because they aren't all that important, though the last two are far more applicable than the first three. Seriously, wizards are so ignorant of Muggle society that they can't dress themselves. Muggle Studies should be a required class. Since Hogwarts has other trivial classes, Astronomy wouldn't stand out so much, except Astronomy is a required class and Arithmancy is not.
If they learn this, why not math?
Since astronomy has no magical value, it's possible that they're taught it as science, not magic. My high school had an astronomy class, too. But if they're allowed to study science, why not math? Why not English? These poor professors are grading seventh years' essays written by students who weren't taught writing past age eleven. Surely astronomy can't be the only normal subject they allowed into the curriculum.
They Will NEVER Use This
Most classes at Hogwarts are about spells (Charms, Transfiguration, DADA). Potions and Herbology deal with substances that could save a person's life. What's the application for astronomy? You can't mix drops of Jupiter into Polyjuice potion. There is no mention of spells that can only be cast when Jupiter is in the proper alignment. Harry never calculates star positions to stop a dementor. The only area of magic in which stars might come in handy is divination, and that's its own class.
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