Most people think that it's a legend, written decades afterwards by authors that couldn't possibly, and didn't, know what actually happened.The word star in Matthew doesn't necessarily mean a literal star in the sky, though it can, just depends.
Another figurative meaning of the word for star is angel.
So my understanding it was an angel they followed in that night sky, perhaps disguised to look like a real star even, as to not draw unwanted attention.
Yeup that's my understanding of it.
Those people didn't have any way of knowing about cosmology, so they didn't know better.
Your "understanding" is to just change what the Gospel says into something that you can believe. It isn't what the Bible says, but it works for you.
What's up with that?
Maybe that's how the legends grow? People realize that something that they really want to believe can't be true, so they change it into something that works for them. And then talk and write about it as though it actually is true?
That's what it looks like to me.
Can you give me a reason to find your premise more plausible than the premise that the Gospel according to Matthew contains fiction?
Tom