Another point, the Grand Conjunction was a very predictable event, every 20 years, and astrologers and astronomers (same MOS back in the day) were perfectly aware of it. It wouldn’t have been seen as anything much out of the ordinary.
Yup...!
....and certain wisemen attuned to the heavens and having access to records probably going back to Babylon would notice aberrations that most would miss. Say... a star or body that appears promptly at sunset in the western sky over Israel that does not move as the heavens move thru the night or with the seasonal constellations. It just sits there night after night and it might have looked rather ordinary at a distance and even the wisemen may not have noted it “at first”.
Yet over a period of days and weeks it still sat there and eventually somebody in that group of wise men took notice.... of an ordinary looking star that doesn’t move with the others thru the night nor did it move with the constellations. They would have looked at the records and checked the legends. The wise men’s star astronomically was the same as Moses’ burning bush, to which Moses “turned aside to see such a great sight”. The wise men knowledgeable of the religions and customs of the region around them decided that something extraordinary was going on. The fact that the Star appeared to rise further overhead as they traveled westward toward Israel would have further excited their hopes and dreams. Perhaps God whispered into their hearts...”come worship your Saving King....”
One Freeper argues that it was the top most star of the Southern Cross that was slowly(by means of the thousands of years of processional changes that constellations and stars slowly change their positions in our skies over time) moving out of view so that only the “top most” crowning star was visible to Israel at that time. He argues that this was what excited the wise men. My arguement was that the Wise men would have already known about the slow movement of the Southern Cross which would take the constellation out of view of Israel and the Mediterranean. The Wise Men knew about the stars already and would have figured the Southern Cross’s crowning star into their calculations. It would not have prompted them to take a hazardous journey for such a “ho hum event”. No...they saw something so extra-ordinary and if the fixed star truly stayed fixed as they traveled westward, it would have risen in apparent angular altitude the closer they traveled towards it until it was overhead where Jesus, Mary and Joseph was living. The Southern Cross crowning star(gamma crucis) would have always stayed distant and at the same relative position. It would also move as the Earth spun on it’s axis at night though never quite disappear.
I think the Christ star was no ordinary star. What it really was, we can only speculate. The Wise men would have known of the Moses’ prophecy of a ‘star that would arise out of Jacob(also called Israel)’. I believe they saw that star and worshipped Christ our King having followed that star to him. They knew the heavens and noted the passing of planets and comets. Yet what they saw arising in the western sky over Israel excited them to the point of travel and exploration. It was a star that did not move with the time of night nor with the seasons...yet as they travelled toward it it appeared more overhead as though “leading them” causing them to ‘rejoice” until at last they found Jesus!