Like Neil deGrasse Tyson, I too was deeply impressed by my first trip to a Zeiss Planetarium at the age of nine. On December 1955, my father drove me south from Alexandria, Virginia, in our old black Plymouth on a special trip to the then new Morehead Planetarium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It happened to be Morehead's traditional XMAS program where they demonstrated how the
Star of Bethlehem might have been a close conjunction between Jupiter and Venus (near Regulus) on June 17, 2 BC. However, "
since the conjunction would have been seen in the west at sunset [as in today's APOD]
it could not have led the magi south from Jerusalem to Bethlehem."
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/26/searching-for-the-star-of-bethlehem/ wrote:
Searching for the Star of Bethlehem
Posted by rjvanderbei of Princeton University
<<A popular explanation for the Star of Bethlehem is that it was actually a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus that presumably occurred on June 17, 2BC. The modern version of JPL’s numerical integrator is known as DE406. DE406 is the ultimate modern tool for validating the earlier claims. Using the web interface, I downloaded positional information for Venus and Jupiter on June 17, 2BC. According to DE406, the conjunction on June 17, 2BC had a minimal separation of 26.2 arcseconds [vs. ~4 arc minutes for today's APOD].>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morehead_Planetarium_and_Science_Center wrote:
<<Morehead Planetarium opened on May 10, 1949 on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The first planetarium in the South, it was only the sixth to be built in the United States. Designed by the same architects who planned the Jefferson Memorial, the cost of its construction, more than $23,000,000 in today’s dollars, made it the most expensive building ever built in North Carolina at the time. It is one of the oldest and largest planetariums in the United States having welcomed over 7 million visitors by its 60th anniversary in 2009.
Since Zeiss, the German firm that produced planetarium projectors, had lost most of its factories during World War II, there were very few projectors available at the time. John Motley Morehead III had to travel to Sweden, where he had previously served as American ambassador, to purchase a Zeiss Model II to serve as the heart of North Carolina’s new planetarium.
From 1959 through 1975 every astronaut in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and Apollo-Soyuz Test Project programs spent hours in celestial navigation training at the planetarium. Morehead technicians developed simplified replicas of flight modules and tools for use in the training, often from plywood or cardboard. A mockup simulating key parts of the Gemini capsule was constructed from plywood and mounted on a barber chair to enable changes in pitch and yaw. Several of these items are on display at the planetarium. That training may have helped save astronauts' lives on occasion. Astronauts aboard Apollo 12 called upon that training after their Saturn V rocket was hit by lightning twice during ascent, knocking spacecraft systems offline and requiring them to configure navigation systems based on fixes taken manually. Gordon Cooper used his training to make the most accurate landing of Project Mercury after a power failure affected navigational systems. Astronauts enjoyed soft drinks, cookies and other snacks during their intense hours-long training session, leading planetarium employees to create the code name "cookie time" to refer to the training sessions.
The first astronaut to train at Morehead, in March 1964, was Neil A. Armstrong. Armstrong visited again only months before the 1969 launch of Apollo 11, spending a total of 20 days at Morehead over 11 training sessions, more than any other astronaut. Astronauts commented that the "large dome" was "highly realistic" calling the facility "superb".>>
Like Neil deGrasse Tyson, I too was deeply impressed by my first trip to a Zeiss Planetarium at the age of nine. On December 1955, my father drove me south from Alexandria, Virginia, in our old black Plymouth on a special trip to the then new Morehead Planetarium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It happened to be Morehead's traditional XMAS program where they demonstrated how the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_Bethlehem#Planetary_conjunction]Star of Bethlehem[/url] might have been a close conjunction between Jupiter and Venus (near Regulus) on June 17, 2 BC. However, "[i][color=#0000FF]since the conjunction would have been seen in the west at sunset[/color][/i] [as in today's APOD] [i][color=#0000FF]it could not have led the magi south from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.[/color][/i]"
[quote=" http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/26/searching-for-the-star-of-bethlehem/"]
[float=right][img3="[b][color=#0000FF]Venus/Jupiter Conjunction in the year 2 BC[/color][/b]"]http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/files/2011/12/VenusJupter2BC_2-480x345.png[/img3][/float]
Searching for the Star of Bethlehem
Posted by rjvanderbei of Princeton University
<<A popular explanation for the Star of Bethlehem is that it was actually a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus that presumably occurred on June 17, 2BC. The modern version of JPL’s numerical integrator is known as DE406. DE406 is the ultimate modern tool for validating the earlier claims. Using the web interface, I downloaded positional information for Venus and Jupiter on June 17, 2BC. According to DE406, the conjunction on June 17, 2BC had a minimal separation of 26.2 arcseconds [vs. ~4 arc minutes for today's APOD].>>[/quote][quote=" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morehead_Planetarium_and_Science_Center"]
[float=right][img3="[b][color=#0000FF]The sundial in front of Morehead Planetarium.[/color][/b]"]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Morehead_Planetarium_Sundial.JPG/1024px-Morehead_Planetarium_Sundial.JPG[/img3][/float]<<Morehead Planetarium opened on May 10, 1949 on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The first planetarium in the South, it was only the sixth to be built in the United States. Designed by the same architects who planned the Jefferson Memorial, the cost of its construction, more than $23,000,000 in today’s dollars, made it the most expensive building ever built in North Carolina at the time. It is one of the oldest and largest planetariums in the United States having welcomed over 7 million visitors by its 60th anniversary in 2009.
Since Zeiss, the German firm that produced planetarium projectors, had lost most of its factories during World War II, there were very few projectors available at the time. John Motley Morehead III had to travel to Sweden, where he had previously served as American ambassador, to purchase a Zeiss Model II to serve as the heart of North Carolina’s new planetarium.
From 1959 through 1975 every astronaut in the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and Apollo-Soyuz Test Project programs spent hours in celestial navigation training at the planetarium. Morehead technicians developed simplified replicas of flight modules and tools for use in the training, often from plywood or cardboard. A mockup simulating key parts of the Gemini capsule was constructed from plywood and mounted on a barber chair to enable changes in pitch and yaw. Several of these items are on display at the planetarium. That training may have helped save astronauts' lives on occasion. Astronauts aboard Apollo 12 called upon that training after their Saturn V rocket was hit by lightning twice during ascent, knocking spacecraft systems offline and requiring them to configure navigation systems based on fixes taken manually. Gordon Cooper used his training to make the most accurate landing of Project Mercury after a power failure affected navigational systems. Astronauts enjoyed soft drinks, cookies and other snacks during their intense hours-long training session, leading planetarium employees to create the code name "cookie time" to refer to the training sessions.
The first astronaut to train at Morehead, in March 1964, was Neil A. Armstrong. Armstrong visited again only months before the 1969 launch of Apollo 11, spending a total of 20 days at Morehead over 11 training sessions, more than any other astronaut. Astronauts commented that the "large dome" was "highly realistic" calling the facility "superb".>>[/quote]