Alan Kim | The Roanoke Times

Auburn High School teacher John Waybright (pointing) started an astronomy class this year and has been holding stargazing parties on Wednesday evenings. Shown are Waybright's 8-inch reflecting telescope and students (from left) Tabitha Ramirez, Michael Jennings and Laura Reppert.

RINER -- Auburn High School teacher John Waybright stood in the dark with six of his students and aimed the thin green line from his laser pointer toward the sky.

"That star over there is Betelgeuse," he told them, showing the teens the ninth-brightest star in the sky.

Two weeks prior, Waybright's students had learned about the red supergiant in class. Now, five hours after the final school bell sounded for the day, they stood bundled up in a field adjacent to the school following his movements.

Every Wednesday this year, Waybright has asked students to join him after-hours to peer into the night sky on the hunt for the perfect hands-on lesson: stargazing.

"It's an out-of-class experience," said 17-year-old Tabitha Ramirez, who was taking part in her second "star party." "I like things like that."

That's because she's able to see what Waybright teaches in his astronomy class. The course is new to Auburn this year and has given Waybright a way to expand on his stargazing hobby and merge Internet technologies in the classroom with firsthand learning.

When students aren't in the field, they are browsing online videos and Hubble telescope pictures for the stellar lessons. At least one class a week involves viewing an online video in the school's computer lab.

Waybright uses YouTube videos, applications such as Google Sky and online magazines in addition to the star parties, the textbook and in-class lectures. He said the possibilities to open students' eyes about science abound on YouTube and other sites.

"It's nice because you know you're not just going to sit there and take notes the whole time," Ramirez said.

Astronomy is not new in Montgomery County's schools. Christiansburg High School has had an astronomy club since 1991. There, instructor Kurt Grosshans takes students out to observe Messier objects, the numerical listing of objects in the sky first compiled by French astronomer Charles Messier.

In Riner, astronomy is new. At one point, the school wanted to toss out its reflecting telescopes, but Waybright said he asked if he could have one. Now, he lets students take it home for sky observations on their own time.

"A lot of these kids have never had a chance to see stuff like this," he said.

Interest in the class did take time. To get the required 15 students, Waybright had to extend registration last spring.

"I thought it sounded pretty interesting," said junior Jacob Underwood. The elective class lets students expand on a six-week lesson they pick up in Earth Science 1.

But next year, students won't be able to take part in the class or the extra-credit star parties. It won't be offered because there are not enough interested students who have taken the prerequisite course, Waybright said.

Waybright said he hopes it can continue the following year.