Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Tenk Kidd on 20/01/2009 10:30:02
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Tenk Kidd asked the Naked Scientists:
With good astronomy software readily available nowadays, what good candidates for the 'Star of Bethlehem' would be worth investigating by the PC Astronomer? (http://www.cybersky.com/ has very good demo software.)
I'll hopefully be at the show (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/) as my SL Avatar.
What do you think?
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This is a link to the Astronomy Cast podcast that deals with exactly that question. The most recently cited likely cause was not stellar, but a close conjunction of Jupiter and Venus, but there are a series of problems associated with this hypothesis.
Astronomy Cast "The Christmas Star" (http://www.astronomycast.com/history/ep-120-the-christmas-star/)
Another option would be to use Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org/) software, put in the coordinates from where you would like to view, enter the date, and see what happens!
Happy hunting!