What was the Star of Bethlehem?
Recollections from Buhl & Hayden Planetaria


The following article was written by Joe Rao, a Planetarium Lecturer at New York City's Hayden Planetarium.

And, at this link, you can find information regarding the "Star of Bethlehem" Planetarium Sky Drama (including the entire show script) which was presented at Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science from 1939 to 1990:

>>> http://buhlplanetarium3.tripod.com/skyshow/bethlehem/

Was the Star of Bethlehem a Star, Comet ... or Miracle?

by Joe Rao, SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist

Date: 23 December 2011 Time: 07:00 AM ET

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This image by Charles H. Coles from the cover of "The Sky" in December 1937 depicts the triangle pattern of the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars as it could have appeared on Feb. 6, B.C. Some astronomers have speculated that this pattern may have been the famed Star of Bethlehem. The skyline of New York, including the R.C.A. (now called the G.E.) Building and the Empire State Building was part of the Hayden Planetarium's man-made sky. CREDIT: Sky & Telescope Magazine, used with permission. View full size image

As a young boy, one of my highlights of the Christmas season was visiting New York's Hayden Planetarium where they would stage their traditional sky show in which astronomers pondered the age-old question of the possible origin of the Star of Bethlehem.
Between 1935 and 1959, Hayden's very first Zeiss projector (three others have been installed since) was run back some 2,000 years in an attempt to reproduce the positions of the planets around the time of the birth of Christ. The entire procedure would take four hours with the planets engaged in an incredible fast-moving dance while the moon flipped around the sky a hundred times a minute!
Ultimately, the projector was brought to a halt on Feb. 25 in the year 6 BC with the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars forming a triangle low in the western sky.
In those days, a silhouette of the skyline of New York was a permanent fixture around the periphery of the planetarium dome, so the planet trio was depicted not above a Middle East desert, but Midtown Manhattan. The audience was then asked: "Was the star seen by the Wise Men an unusual, eye-catching gathering of naked eye planets, or was that fabled 'sign in the sky' a meteor, comet, nova, or something supernatural?"

MORE: http://www.space.com/14036-christmas-star-bethlehem-comet-planet-theories.html

gaw

Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director,
Friends of the Zeiss < http://friendsofthezeiss.org >
Electronic Mail - < gawalsh@planetarium.cc >
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