Introduction
A story familiar to Christians is the Star of Bethlehem. The writer of Matthew tells of a star appearing over Bethlehem to signal the birth of Jesus. So significant was its appearance that wise men, called Magi, probably astrologers and possibly from the court of Persia or Babylon, traveled to Judea to find the newborn king that they believed the star heralded. Was it a really a new star or was it something else?
To determine astronomically what the star may have been we first need to set the date of its most likely occurrence. Biblical accounts presage the nativity with Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem. John Mosley of the Griffith Observatory in California in his research on the star of Bethlehem describes a general taxation ordered by Caesar Augustus in 8 BC but believes that the correct translation refers to a registration or an oath of allegiance, in either 3 or 2 BC for Augustus' Silver Jubilee. Unlike a tax, an oath and registration might have required both Joseph and his wife to journey to Bethlehem. Either way these two interpretations bracket the birth of Christ between 8 and 2 BC.

Candidates
Did any unusual astronomical phenomenon occur between 8 and 2 BC? As it happens there were several notable celestial events during that period. The Chinese reported two comets during that time. The comet of 5 BC, in Capricornus and visible for 70 days, was reported to have a tail.

Professor Humphreys of Cambridge University believes that this comet, which he describes as having a vertical tail, appeared at the time of the Jewish Passover. Prof. Humphreys believes that this started the Magi, who were knowledgeable of the Jewish prophecy recorded in the Book of Micah, concerning the birth of a Jewish king, on their journey. If right about the vertical tail, this could agree with the biblical account in Matthew that the star "stood over where the young child was". The comet of 4 BC had no tail and whether it was actually a comet or a nova is unknown. While historians have usually suggested that comets were always bad omens, Humphreys believes that history shows them to be either good or bad omens.

If a comet or nova were not the star then could it have been a planet? In his account Matthew refers to the star in the singular, not the plural sense. At the time of the nativity Jupiter was in conjunction with Venus two times and with the bright star Regulus (named for royalty) three times in a ten month period during 3-2 BC. Could this have made Jupiter the "star" of interest? Or could the star have been more unique than Jupiter?

Uranus, which was at its zenith in 6 BC and in retrograde motion, would appear to be standing still overhead. With its magnitude varying between 5.7 and 6.1 it was just at the edge of naked eye visibility. Certainly only astrologers who study the sky intensely would have noticed a new "wanderer". Uranus would be a dim, hard to see object even at zenith and moving very slowly against the stellar background. This is not likely to be the sort of event that would send the court's philosophers on a long journey.

There is an astrological argument for a lunar occultation for the star of Bethlehem. Occultations had significant astrological import, a

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