[Texas Fossil]

The Western Journal can be counted upon to present these type of events in our time in the appropriate light.

There are many places this event is posted, this is one of the best.

I look forward to seeing it. And the timing could not be more appropriate just prior to Christmas when we are afraid for the consequences of the stolen election.

May God Bless President Trump and his family during this Christmas. May God Bless the "United States" of America. May we again represent the light of truth to the rest of the world.

[madison10]

Not exactly. The Christmas star was three planets.

[CincyRichieRich]

Well I will just say that that has to mean something in this very precarious time. One message that may or may not seem obvious is all of us should increase our amount of faith that we have in our Lord. Give Jesus a try he will not let you down...His covenant is one way.

[AppyPappy]

My Bible says “star”, not two planets

[Buttons12]

The ancients knew perfectly well that Jupiter and Saturn were not a single star.

[Big Red Badger]

Note to self,
December 21,2020.

[Texas Eagle]

Gonna be cool. Been watching the planets get “closer” every night. Hope it’s not cloudy that night.

[NFHale]

That’s actually comforting to me, in some strange, bizarre way.

Thanks for posting it, Tex.

[Buttons12]

I read somewhere about a nova that was recorded by Chinese astrologers, in 5 or 4BC.

Herod may not have been interested in the night sky...and his astrologers might not have wanted to mention it anyway. You have to watch what you say to people like Herod :)

[PGalt]

T post. sign.

[Lauren BaRecall]

bttt

[WashingtonSource]

Bump

[Honorary Serb]

....For the First Time in 800 Years (2000?), the ‘Christmas Star’ Will Be Visible....

No it will not be!!!!

http://saintandrewgoc.org/home/2016/12/22/the-star-of-bethlehem

If you don’t believe Orthodox Tradition, read the Scriptures. No astronomical body could do what the Star did to guide the Magi!!

[CheshireTheCat]

We will most likely not see it in the U.S. It is supposed to peak at around 1pm EST. It will likely be most visible to people in Paris, Madrid, Rome, Warsaw, Frankfurt, and other major cities in Europe and a couple in Africa, such as Algiers.

[sauropod]

Put on calendar

[Verginius Rufus]

1226 must have been a very unusual year. Is it the only time that Christmas fell in March?

[BitWielder1]

Jupiter is so much brighter than Saturn that the aligned planets won't be much brighter than Jupiter by itself.

[deport]

[Impy]

Seems like a sick joke. Sorry.

[mdmathis6]

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”. (The real translation of the passage...”seen his star in the east” is really...”We of the East, have seen his star and have come to worship him...meaning they were looking westward over Israel.)

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 nor with the seasons. They would have looked at the records and checked the legends. The wise men’s star, I think, 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 may have 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 cause constellations and stars to 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 argument was that the Wise men would have already known about the slow movement of the Southern Cross which would eventually take the constellation’s crowning star out of view of Israel and the Mediterranean. The Wise Men knew about the star 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 over Israel in their “west” 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 but swiveling slightly the way the ladle of the dipper does in the northwhile the two end stars stay lined up with polaris. The Spine stars of the Southern cross always point south but the top spinal star would swivel thru the night as the constellation is circumpolar. Being low in the sky Gamma Crucis would probably looked like it was bobbing upward then downward thru the night with the positions and timings changing as the Earth moved about its orbit.
We also know that the star was visible to the magi(,no one knows the number of them, probably would have been a protective caravan)for at least 2 years. It makes sense in terms of the need to time to observe and travel and make notes. We also know that Herod had all the 2 year male children and under killed in that region after the Magi, warned of God in their dreams, returned not to Herod but went home. Joseph also got warning and took his family to Egypt. Jesus was a toddler by the time the magi arrived.

I think the Christ star was no ordinary star. What it really was, we can only speculate. The Wise men might 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 and knew the seasonal positions and could calculate the regularity of them. They probably believed that the Earth was round as the learned Greeks did. 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!

[SamAdams76]

In an event that has not occurred in almost 800 years, Jupiter and Saturn will appear to almost collide in a phenomenon scientists refer to as a “conjunction,” making them look like an incredibly bright “double planet,”according to a report from Forbes Media.

Except 800 years ago was not the "Christmas Star" that the wise men saw some 2,000+ years ago.

Still an impressive sight. I've been watching Saturn and Jupiter grow closer together for weeks now, with a bright Mars far off to the left. Don't forget Venus in the very early morning before sunrise. Also a bright planet.