Yes, this is kind of involved and lengthy to write down, but the nubbin of it has to do with the precession of the earth's axis, the continuous year by year constant predictable decline of the Southern Cross heavenly configuration, the following of it further and further over the southern horizon by the magi, the astrologers from Paddan-Aram (Anatolia in the Greek text which means "The East"), a region now bearing the name Turkey.
At Jesus birth time, the brightest star of the Southern Cross, looking from Jerusalem, would have appeared just over Bethlehem's buildings to the south about five miles away and fifty to a hundred feet higher than Jerusalem's elevaton.
The way I reckon is that the magi were not coming to Jerusalem from the eastern direction from Babylon. (Even in Daniel's time 500-600 years earlier, the "wise men," the soothsayers, the astrologers came to Babylon from Sanliurfa, the city "Ur-of-the-Chaldee-mountains"). So, coming from that area, the Paddan-Aram, not far from Lake Van and the Mount Ararat where Noah's Ark beached, they came from the area north of Jerusalem, and had been following the appearance of the Southern Cross more to the south of Sanliurfa for hundreds of years.
That is the true, real star they were loking for, and in the Cross formation as a sign of the Savior's demise to boot!
The region Anatolia (= "The East") is called that by the Greciand because it is east of Greece! (Even by the Persians, though Anatolia is to the west of Iran.)
του δε ιησου γεννηθεντος εν βηθλεεμ της ιουδαιας εν ημεραιςThere are a lot of other crazy hypotheses , but they are of no consequence.
The but Jesus was born in Bethlehem of the Judea in the days
ηρωδου του βασιλεως ιδου μαγοι απο ανατολων παρεγενοντο εις
of Herod the King, behold, Magi from Anatolia they came into
ιεροσολυμα
Jerusalem
λεγοντες που εστιν ο τεχθεις βασιλευς των ιουδαιων ειδομεν
Saying where is he born, King . of the Jews? We have seen
γαρ αυτου τον αστερα εν τη ανατολη και ηλθομεν προσκυνησαι
For of him the star in the Anatolia and have come to worship αυτω
him
Sanliurfa (meaning "Glorious Ur) is the place where Abraham was born and lived, and from which God sent him to Canaan, to which he sent his steward to bring back a wife for Isaac, and to which Jacob went to eavde Esau and also get not A wife. but two, plus two other concubines. It is not the locality way further south and east near the Persian Gulf that the archaeologist Leonard Wooley dug and found another Ur bthere, back in the 1920s, I believe. His claim (wrongly) as Abraham's birthplace cemented his undeserved fame for his unscholarly Christian admirers, but not me. Moody's Bible Atlas confirms my conclusion on that observation.
Thank you, a lot of work went into it. Let me introduce something to you worthy of consideration.
I don’t think it was a star at all simply for the reason stars do not sit stationary. They’re constantly on the move, we cannot run fast enough to keep up with them. If a star could sit stationary, there is no way people could congregate directly underneath it. So, what happened wasn’t a star.
Its rumored the three wise men wandered in, as per Google, from 400 to 900 miles. Travel by loaded camel and ass is about 30 miles per day. That in terms of days is anywheres from 15 to 30 days. That’s after they caught onto it and decided to make a road trip. That is a significant period of time.
Other visitors came in from other directions.
If this omnidirectional beacon were sitting at 500 feet, they, the wise men, could see it touching their horizon. Other people could readily congregate under it. If it sat at the elevation such as the stars, they could never find one another. If it sat at the elevation of satellites, the same. In order for the beacon to function of its intended function, it would have to be sitting in our atmosphere.
So, if you accept that we have to set the elevation of the omnidirectional beacon. They would have to get it out of sight so the vehicle could not be seen with a naked eye, but low enough for the first Christian congregation and first Christmas.
Seeing the beacon could radiate light in all directions, it could do down as well. Ever notice how all the old nativity artwork was illuminated from above? This too would aid the ability for the people to find one another and congregate while providing cover for the vehicle providing the omnidirectional beacon.