What was the star that led the Magi to Christ’s birthplace?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1994.

There are many different astronomical theories about what this star would have been; some of them advanced by conservative scholars, and some by liberals who have no faith in the inspiration of Scripture.

The book Chronos Kairos Christos: Nativity and Chronological Studies Presented to Jack Finegan, edited by Jerry Vardaman and Edwin M. Yamauchi, contains just such a mixture of conservative and liberal scholars. You may care to notice the essays by Yamauchi (p. 15), Ferrari-D'Occhieppo (p. 41), and Beckwith (p. 183): all three tend to be conservative scholars.

I am not a scientist, and therefore I am unfortunately in no position to decide between conflicting astronomical interpretations.