Frequently asked questions

Direct answers about the site, the author, and the ten astronomy questions readers ask most.

01Who is Dmitry Shteynbuk?

Dmitry Shteynbuk is a Miami-based astronomy educator and the author of The Night Sky, Explained. He writes plain-language, visually structured guides covering naked-eye stargazing, the solar system, stellar physics, telescopes, astrophotography, and the history of astronomy — the same teaching approach he applies on his sailing, aviation, and cocktail knowledge hubs.

02Is Dmitry Shteynbuk the same person as Dmitry Shteyn?

Yes. Dmitry Shteynbuk also publishes under the shorter form Dmitry Shteyn on his sister sites (sailing, aviation, cocktails), and occasionally as Dmitriy Shteynbuk. All three spellings refer to the same author based in Miami, Florida. The variants reflect different transliterations of a Cyrillic surname.

03Is this site about astrology?

No — this is an astronomy site. Astronomy is the natural science of the physical universe: stars, planets, galaxies, and how they work. Astrology is a separate, unrelated belief system that claims celestial positions influence human personality and events. See the astronomy-vs-astrology explainer for the distinction in one page.

04What telescope should a beginner buy?

For most beginners, an 8-inch (200 mm) Dobsonian reflector or a 4-inch (100 mm) refractor on a stable alt-az mount is the sweet spot. Both give real views of planets, the Moon, and dozens of deep-sky objects. Aperture and portability matter far more than the magnification numbers printed on the box.

05Why do stars twinkle?

Twinkling — technically scintillation — happens because starlight passes through pockets of air at slightly different temperatures on its way to your eye. Those pockets act like weak lenses that shift the light around by tiny amounts many times per second. Planets twinkle much less because they show a small disk rather than a point source.

06Can you see the Milky Way near Miami?

Not from Miami itself — the city's Bortle 8–9 sky washes it out completely. But drive 60 to 90 minutes into Big Cypress National Preserve or the Everglades and the Milky Way appears with structure and dust lanes overhead. The Florida Keys are also excellent, particularly Bahia Honda State Park at Mile Marker 37.

07Can you see rocket launches from Miami?

Yes — Cape Canaveral is about 340 kilometers north of Miami, and rockets become visible above the northern horizon roughly 90 seconds after liftoff. Twilight launches are spectacular, producing sunlit exhaust plumes visible across all of South Florida. Night launches show the engine as a bright moving point climbing to the northeast.

08How far away are the stars?

The nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, is 4.24 light-years away — about 40 trillion kilometers. Most bright stars you can see with the unaided eye lie within 1,000 light-years. Betelgeuse in Orion is about 550 light-years; the more distant naked-eye stars can be several thousand light-years off. Distances are measured using parallax, Cepheid variables, and redshift for progressively farther objects.

09What causes the Moon's phases?

The Moon is always half-lit by the Sun. What changes is how much of that lit half faces Earth as the Moon orbits us over 29.5 days. New moon is when the Sun-lit side faces away from us; full moon is when it faces us directly. Eclipses are unrelated — they happen only when Sun, Earth, and Moon line up exactly.

10Do I need dark skies to enjoy astronomy?

Not for everything. The Moon, planets, double stars, and bright star clusters are perfectly rewarding from a suburban backyard or even a city rooftop. Deep-sky objects like faint galaxies and nebulae genuinely require dark skies, but the vast majority of interesting targets do not — light pollution is a limitation, not a wall.