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Re: The Star of Bethlehem and Navigation
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2009 Jan 03, 21:28 -0800
From: Paul Hirose
Date: 2009 Jan 03, 21:28 -0800
Marcel Tschudin wrote: > After > studying various texts a person came to the conclusion that this star > has likely been Venus in the morning-sky at the moment when it changed > its movement from retrograde to normal. According to his calculations > this moment would have been on September 1st, 2 BC. For those of you > who do know German they can read some of his explanations here > http://bazonline.ch/wissen/geschichte/Der-Stern-von-Bethlehem-war-die-Venus/story/29467985 I used SofaJpl to check the motion of Venus with the JPL DE406 ephemeris and IAU 2006/2000A precession-nutation model: -0001-08-31T00:00 TT (J) 139°27' true RA -0001-09-01T00:00 TT (J) 139°05' true RA -0001-09-02T00:00 TT (J) 138°44' true RA -0001-09-03T00:00 TT (J) 138°26' true RA -0001-09-04T00:00 TT (J) 138°10' true RA -0001-09-05T00:00 TT (J) 137°56' true RA -0001-09-06T00:00 TT (J) 137°45' true RA -0001-09-07T00:00 TT (J) 137°36' true RA -0001-09-08T00:00 TT (J) 137°29' true RA -0001-09-09T00:00 TT (J) 137°25' true RA -0001-09-10T00:00 TT (J) 137°23' true RA -0001-09-11T00:00 TT (J) 137°24' true RA -0001-09-12T00:00 TT (J) 137°27' true RA -0001-09-13T00:00 TT (J) 137°32' true RA -0001-09-14T00:00 TT (J) 137°39' true RA -0001-09-15T00:00 TT (J) 137°49' true RA -0001-09-16T00:00 TT (J) 138°01' true RA -0001-09-17T00:00 TT (J) 138°15' true RA -0001-09-18T00:00 TT (J) 138°32' true RA -0001-09-19T00:00 TT (J) 138°50' true RA -0001-09-20T00:00 TT (J) 139°10' true RA "TT (J)" means the Terrestrial Time scale and Julian calendar. The year -1 is 2 BC. The right ascension is the geocentric coordinate. So my computation shows Venus stationary in right ascension on September 10 (Sept. 8 in the Gregorian calendar). In another computation I found it stationary in true longitude on the 12th (Julian calendar). To compute topocentric values, I used 32N 45E. This is in Iraq, at the same latitude but 10 degrees east of Bethlehem. It's just a guess. Delta T is +176 minutes, from a polynomial approximation by Espenak and Meeus at the NASA eclipse web site. With those values, at 2 BC September 10 04:55 local apparent time, I have Venus at azimuth 88, elevation 15. Its phase angle is 140 (0 = full, 180 = new), so in a telescope it would be a crescent. The Sun is at azimuth 76, elevation -10. Moon phase angle is 52 degrees, 3 days past first quarter. New moon was August 30. I can't explain why my computation has Venus stationary on the 10th, not the 1st. Another problem is that 1) the Magi arrived in Jeruselem in the time of King Herod, 2) Herod died in 4 BC. I wonder how the author of this new theory explains the discrepancy. The Bible translation I have, the New International Version, says, "Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'" (A footnote says "star in the east" could also translate to "star when it rose".) There's more than one way to read "We saw his star in the east." 1) the star was in the east, 2) the Magi were in the east (in their home country) when they saw the star. In any case, after the star tells them "what" (the king of the Jews is born), "where" is obvious. They must go to Jerusalem, the Jewish capital city. When the Magi arrive and ask about the child's location, King Herod sends them to Bethlehem, only 8 km south. In Bethlehem, it may have been easy to find the right house by simply asking people in the village. So the Magi may not have needed a supernatural navigational aid at any point in the journey. It's true the Bible says that after they left Herod, "the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was." However, to me that doesn't say they used it for navigation. I suspect a lot of details have been distorted in the re-telling and translation of the story by people not expert in land navigation and astrology. But having said all that, I admit that nothing indicates the Magi did *not* use some celestial object (miraculous or otherwise) to navigate. I may investigate some of the conjunctions and occultations in the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_bethlehem -- I block messages that contain attachments or HTML. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---