Was the star of Bethlehem a real astronomical event?

[CoxRox]

"A year on either side" is not an accurate representation of the problem of Jesus' birth (option 5 is never), nor is "a year on either side" anywhere near as precise as it would have to be to have anything to do with astronomy. The sky moves like clockwork from our vantage point. Further, proof of the existence of a star (and lets be honest you could just pick any star if you wanted to believe, there are a lot of them), is proof of the birth of a demi-god how?

Astrologers follow stars too, they must "speak the truth" to you? The whole star of beth business is a joke. As it was said in genesis, god made the stars for signs (gen1:14), guess that proves it, and astrology......are we off to check our lucky numbers and horoscopes yet?

I don't believe that 'a year either side' is a big deal. We knew that Jesus was born around 3 BCE, so now that we know the exact year of the 'star', we now can be sure of the EXACT year of His birth.

The 'star' was just a sign. Stars or constellations don't exert influence over us, as astrology claims, so mentioning astrology in connection with this is just unneccessary as I'm sure you know.

The 'star' was real. Thank you Nasa for confirming it.