As I have described in Chronicle of the Living Christ and also in Christian Hermetic Astrology: The Star of the Magi and the Life of Christ, the background to the Star of the Magi we find in Babylonian astrology and astronomy. Already the German astronomer Kepler tried to identify what the Star of the Magi was. What was it that the Magi saw in the heavens? He came to the conclusion that the Star of the Magi was connected with the threefold conjunction between the planets Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces in the year 7 B.C. These two planets Jupiter and Saturn met three times during the course of the year 7 B.C. Kepler computed that they were joined by the planet Mars, so the three planets Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn wefre very close together in the month of March, 6 B.C., which is the date he arrived at for the birth of Jesus in his book De Stella Nova (1606). Kepler had been inspired with the idea of the conjunction of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn at the birth of Jesus when on 17 October 1604 he saw Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in close proximity to one another in the constellation of Scorpio and just above, in the constellation of Ophiuchus the Serpent-Bearer, a radiant new star (an astronova). He firmly believed that it must have been something similar to this extraordinary heavenly spectacle that the three Magi had seen centuries earlier.
If one follows up on Kepler's identification of March in the year 6 B.C. as the time of birth of Jesus, one can even identify the day or rather the evening of his birth. As I have described in my books, it was the evening of the Full Moon in Virgo, which took place on the evening of March 5th in the year 6 B.C. The Full Moon in the middle of the constellation of the Virgin was the sign of the birth. On that evening the three Magi were gazing up to the heavens and saw the shining orb of the Full Moon in the Virgin. On the one side of the Virgin they saw her holding the bread symbolised by the ear of corn, and on the other side the grapes symbolising the wine. They beheld the disc of the Moon and saw the radiant soul of the child descending toward them, coming down to the Earth. It was this great vision that led them to know that on this night Jesus was born on Earth. And they also knew from the Babylonian tradition that the Persian king Cyrus the Great had freed the people of Israel in order that they could go back and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
The three kings believed that he must have been born in Jerusalem. So they set off to seek the newborn king there. As we know, they made the mistake of going to King Herod and asking him the whereabouts of the newborn king. This led to the massacre of the Innocents. It is a remarkable thing that a tablet has been excavated from Babylon which shows that the Babylonian priesthood had actually computed this particular day, March 5th in the year 6 B.C. On that very day there took place the conjunction between Mars and Jupiter. And they had computed in advance the meeting of Mars and Jupiter on 5 March, 6 B.C. This was the computational side of what the Magi experienced on an inner plane of vision through spiritual beholding of the starry heavens. See the horoscope of the Star of the Magi - this being the birth horoscope of the child Jesus whose birth is described in the Gospel of St. Matthew.
As the three Magi were from the stream of Babylonian star wisdom, they used the Babylonian sidereal zodiac (see my PhD thesis History of the Zodiac published in 2007 by Sophia Academic Press), which is identical with the sidereal zodiac based on the Synetic Vernal Point (SVP) defined by Cyril Fagan and Donald Bradley (Garth Allen). Therefore the horoscope of the Star of the Magi is cast in terms of the sidereal zodiac, and it shows the Full Moon in the middle of sidereal Virgo, just as described above in the vision of the three kings who beheld the Full Moon in the middle of the constellation of the Virgin. However, what they could not see was that the Full Moon was in conjunction with Pluto - this being a sign of the danger threatening this new born child, which came in the shape of the command of King Herod the Great for all children in Bethlehem under two years of age to be murdered. Fortunately, Joseph and Mary were warned by the three Magi to flee, which led to the flight to Egypt, in order to escape the slaughter of the Innocents.
There are many other interesting aspects in this horoscope, one being that the Sun is located in the middle of sidereal Pisces, the sign that later became firmly associated not just with Jesus but with Christianity as a whole. The designation "Jesus the Fish", which was later (third century A.D.) in use among Christians in Alexandria, was thus true in a cosmological/astrological sense. Also, the exact conjunction of Mars and Jupiter near the beginning of sidereal Aries is an indication of tremendous strength (Mars, enhanced by Aries) in the service of wisdom (Jupiter), which is the signature of the far-reaching teaching activity of Jesus Christ. More background concerning the Star of the Magi is given in my books Chronicle of the Living Christ: Foundations of Cosmic Christianity (1996) and The Star of the Magi and the Life of Christ: Christian Hermetic Astrology (1998, republished 2009), both available from Steiner Books or Amazon - or from the online bookstore of the website www.sophiafoundation.org, which is directly linked with this website.