Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Friday, December 17th.  The sun will rise at 8:13.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 5:03.   The moon, half way from first quarter to full, will set at 5:34 tomorrow morning.

For over 400 years astronomers have wondered and looked through ancient Chinese records, ran the positions of planets back 2000 years, and still no one knows for sure what the Star of Bethlehem really was, but here’s my favorite scenario.  On August 13th of 3 BC Jupiter and Venus briefly merged in the pre-dawn skies against the constellation of Leo the lion.  A month later Jupiter was in conjunction with Regulus the bright star in Leo, the little king star.  Then 9 months later, after sunset on June 16th of 2 BC the two planets again joined as one in Leo.  The king of the planets twice mating with Venus as Ishtar  the Babylonian goddess of fertility against the constellation of the lion signifying Judah in Genesis?  The Magi not being Jewish might have found meaning in all that.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.