Was the star of Bethlehem a real astronomical event?

[Cyberman]

The reason that God has everything to do with the Star of Bethlehem, He knew when to send His Son into the world so that it could be documented by the heavens, He knew exactly were the stars and planets would be to give witness to the birth of His Son. God being creator and omniscient this was no problem for Him. Also thanks for proving what I said.

Why would your god - in fact, any god - need to resort to using natural phenomena to work its miracles? Are we talking about the same god that parted the Sea of Reeds and made pillars of fire? That turned rivers to blood? The same one that wished the heavens and earth into being in the first place? Why is it now reduced to simply pulling the strings of what is already existant, causing a natural event that is so ambiguous and mundane as to be completely meaningless? See, if (for example) Barack Obama was suddenly to turn into a pillar of salt in the blink of an eye, live on the White House lawn and especially in answer to prayer, it'd almost certainly be convincing evidence of a miracle (or at the very least, an unusual event beyond human knowledge). It may even prove to be evidence for a god or gods; though which one/s would still be up for grabs. Personally, my money's on Ceiling Cat. However, if the best that can be achieved is a commonplace natural event, understood by scientists and indistinguishable from any other natural event, then you have nothing in your corner except stubborn faith.

NASA uses the Starry Night program to pinpoint where planets will be so they can have spacecraft to be at the correct place at the correct time.

I too have the Starry Night program, along with Stellarium, Celestia and a few others. Predicting planetary positions, future as well as historical ones, isn't that big of a deal, provided you have correct data - which isn't kept secret by any means; it's all freely available online. (In fact I often challenge myself with planning my own planetary missions using the spaceflight simulator "Orbiter", which uses that same orbital data to go with with the rest of its real-world physics... truly I say unto you: with the proper tools and the knowledge to use them, it ain't rocket science. Although intercepting the orbit of Mars without actually hitting the damn thing can be annoying).

The point is, any astronomy program worth its pixels will show you phenomena such as outer planet retrograde motion, lunar and solar eclipses and planetary libration; also an effect known as an analemma, which probably shouldn't be Googled with safesearch off. So what's your point, beyond a faint whiff of argumentum ad verecundiam? We already agree that such phenomena exist in nature, we know enough about them to understand what causes them and predict them.

I see also that you do not completely understand that the position a person is at on Earth will determine what is seen, you have to remember the Magi were east of Bethlehem and in close proximity to Babylon.

No, I understand perfectly well, thank you anyway. For example, did you know that an observer in the northern hemisphere sees an almost totally different night sky (apart from a degree of overlap at the horizon over the course of a year) to one in the southern? Thus I repeat: what is your point? So the Magi were close to Bedlam (to use a shortened form of Bethlehem); they had a shorter trip than most. Surely they were not the only astrologers on the planet, even in relatively nearby locations. Add to that the impressive number of proper astronomers around the world, notably Mesopotamia, Greece and China. Where is the mention of this stellar event in other sources?