“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him… and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.”
-Matthew, apostle of Jesus the Christ, AD 50
A brisk December evening found an old man gazing westward into the afterglow of a sunset whose glory had passed. The brilliant orange and pink had given way to darker hues as night drew closer.
A sparkling point of light caught his eye as it pierced the deep blue twilight.
The silence of this newborn night awoke his idle musing, “The first star of night this must be, yet how bright it is! Perhaps this is the Evening Star herself, Venus, as the Romans call her, weaving her way through the lattice of lesser stars in an intricate dance with the Sun. Sometimes running ahead of him, at others she lingers behind to watch as the world beneath is bathed in the darkness her Sun has left behind...”
Lost in thought, he watched as the night sky blossomed into a shimmering garden of countless stars. Like the lights of a thousand ships adrift on the streams of a great black sea, the stars drifted along in unison toward the western horizon. His gaze kept returning to that first bright star, still high in the western sky.
The realization struck suddenly, startling him from his reverie: the star was still high in the western sky; it did not appear to have moved at all. Scanning the sky for evidence of this astronomical impossibility, it was but moments before he found it. The constellation Orion lie just above the western horizon, below the hanging star in the west; yet he was sure he had watched the constellation appear from the darkening twilight above and well to the east of the new star.
“Surely, this must be a Sign, but what could it mean?” His thoughts racing, he hurried to his study. Trembling with excitement, he gathered a few instruments and carefully made his way up the dark, winding stair of his observation tower. Emerging from the darkness of the stair, the gentle brilliance of a thousand stars burst upon him, but his eyes came to rest on only One, well above the western horizon. Securing the sextant, he kept his eyes fixed on this new Star while his hands meticulously worked the familiar dials, and in a few moments the Star was perfectly sighted in. Turning to an empty page in the record book, he took took up the pen and carefully recorded these coordinates:
Azimuth: 301 degrees, 22 minutes, 13 seconds
Elevation: 80 degrees, 49 minutes, 28 seconds
He dared not look away or even blink for some minutes, and yet the star did not move at all. “What could be the meaning of this new Wonder? Why should the Star first appear tonight? What is the significance of that single point in the sky, that this new Star will not drift from it?” A torrent of questions flooded his mind, begging to be answered, but not a single answer could be offered. He glanced down at the record book and idly wondered if his colleagues were in their towers tonight, all recording the same coordinates. He dismissed the thought, even as it emerged. “As with any star,” he reasoned to himself, “each of my colleagues will be recording a different set of coordinates, depending on their unique horizon provided by the curvature of the earth.”
In a sudden revelation, the puzzle unfolded before him, “If this new Star is fixed at a single point in the sky, then it follows that there must be one precise location on the Earth that lies directly beneath the Star. Furthermore, given the azimuth and elevation of the Star as seen from a known observation point, that location could be mathematically determined!” Thumbing his way through the record book, he discovered the inscription he sought on the inside of the back cover:
Observation Tower
48 degrees, 43 minutes, and 46 seconds from the North Celestial Pole
111 degrees, 42 minutes, and 57 seconds west of the Prime Meridian
There awoke in the old man a childlike excitement. He knew that tomorrow there would be great speculation and deliberation on the new Star. They would determine what point the star was over and perhaps they would even deduce what lie at the foot of the Star. Yet he trembled with a deeper thrill, for somehow he knew that this would not end with debate and discussion. He must prepare for a long journey; he must follow this new Star.
This puzzle is based on a fine cache in Arizona, The Star of the Magi by Wadudu. Many thanks for his kind permission to reproduce it here!
You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.