The Night Sky, Explained
Author Archive

Dmitry Shteynbuk

Astronomy educator · Miami, Florida

Miami-based astronomy educator publishing plain-language, visually structured guides to the night sky — from naked-eye stargazing to telescopes, stellar physics, and the history of how we learned where we are.

Also publishes as Dmitriy Shteynbuk and Dmitry Shteyn. See the full biography for the sister-site knowledge hubs.

25
Long-form guides
14
Logbook posts
8
Knowledge hubs

Long-form articles

Article index →
  1. Learning the Sky: Five Constellations That Anchor EverythingNaked-eye astronomy
  2. Magnitude: How Astronomers Measure BrightnessNaked-eye astronomy
  3. The Celestial Sphere: How the Sky Is OrganizedNaked-eye astronomy
  4. Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors: What's the Difference?The neighborhood
  5. The Moon's Phases, Finally Explained ProperlyThe neighborhood
  6. Why Orbits Work: Kepler's Three Laws in Plain LanguageThe neighborhood
  7. How Stars Die: White Dwarfs, Neutron Stars, and Black HolesHow stars work
  8. The HR Diagram: The Single Most Useful Chart in AstronomyHow stars work
  9. How a Star Is BornHow stars work
  10. How Far Is Far: The Cosmic Distance LadderBeyond the Sun
  11. Nebulae: The Four Kinds and How to See ThemBeyond the Sun
  12. The Milky Way: Reading Our Own Galaxy from Inside ItBeyond the Sun
  13. Eyepieces and Focal Ratio: The Math That Sets Your ViewOptics & gear
  14. Tropical Observing: Humidity, Haze, Hurricane Season, and the Surprisingly Steady Seeing of South Florida25° North
  15. Your First Telescope: Why Aperture Beats MagnificationOptics & gear
  16. Refractor vs. Reflector vs. Catadioptric: Optics, Honestly ComparedOptics & gear
  17. Stacking: How Amateurs Beat Light Pollution with MathImaging the sky
  18. Tracking the Sky: Why Equatorial Mounts ExistImaging the sky
  19. Astrophotography with What You Have: Phone and TripodImaging the sky
  20. Hubble, Leavitt, and the Night the Universe Got BiggerHow we learned where we are
  21. Galileo's Telescope: Four Moons That Changed EverythingHow we learned where we are
  22. Ptolemy to Copernicus: Moving the Center of the UniverseHow we learned where we are
  23. The Southern Sky at 25°N: Stars Miami Sees That the North Never Does25° North
  24. Dark-Sky Sites Near Miami: The Everglades, Big Cypress, and the Keys25° North
  25. Watching Cape Canaveral Launches from Miami: What You Can See and When25° North

Nightly logbook

Blog →
  1. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Why Your Eyes Need 20 Minutes of DarknessHuman eyes require 20 to 30 minutes of darkness to regenerate rhodopsin, allowing rod cells to detect faint stars up to magnitude 6.0 or deeper.
  2. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Can I See the Milky Way From Miami? (Answered)You cannot see the Milky Way from Miami due to extreme light pollution, but the galactic core is visible from the Everglades National Park at night.
  3. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Aperture Beats Magnification Every TimeAperture determines a telescope's light-gathering power and resolution, outperforming high magnification which only spreads out existing photons and dims t
  4. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Spectral Classes From O to M in Plain TermsStar classification uses letters O, B, A, F, G, K, and M to rank surface temperatures from 30,000 Kelvin down to approximately 3,000 Kelvin.
  5. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Jupiter's Galilean Moons Night by NightIdentify Jupiter’s moons by orbital period: Io (1.77 days), Europa (3.55), Ganymede (7.15), and Callisto (16.69) reveal their identities through movement.
  6. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Finding Polaris Without a CompassLocate Polaris by extending a line through the Big Dipper’s pointer stars to find the North Star, which sits 25.8 degrees above the horizon in Miami.
  7. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Can I See Planets from a Downtown Miami Balcony? (Answered)Answering a common reader question about light pollution and solar system observation from urban high-rises.
  8. Dmitry Shteynbuk — How Henrietta Leavitt Measured the UniverseIn 1912, a woman working as a "computer" at Harvard found the pattern that made the extragalactic distance scale possible.
  9. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Averted Vision: The Observing Trick Built into Your RetinaThe faintest thing you can see is not what you look straight at. It is what you almost look at.
  10. Dmitry Shteynbuk — What Is a Light-Year, Really? (Answered)Reader question this week: a light-year is not a unit of time, and yes, it does actually matter.
  11. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Watching a Rocket Launch from a Miami RooftopCape Canaveral is 340 km up the coast. From a Miami rooftop, you can see the arc — if you know where to look.
  12. Dmitry Shteynbuk — The Moon Illusion: Why It Looks Huge on the HorizonIt is exactly the same size overhead as it is on the horizon. Your brain is doing the trick.
  13. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Why Aperture Beats Magnification Every TimeThe number that actually matters on a telescope box is the one nobody prints in giant type.
  14. Dmitry Shteynbuk — Polaris Isn't the Brightest Star. Here's What It Actually Is.The North Star's fame has nothing to do with brightness — it comes from an accident of geometry.