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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS


Not all of these are actual questions I have been asked, but this is a good place to relate some miscellaneous information.


The number one question I recieve is some version of this:

Q: What telescope should I buy?

A: I don't know! It depends on a lot of things, such as your experience level, what you want to look at, and how much you have to spend. If you are a beginner, there are many good, general-purpose starter scopes and binoculars to choose from so this is not an issue. As you get more advanced, you should do a lot of reading and talk to people with interests similar to yours and see what they are using. To be honest, I do not have experience with a wide range of telescopes, so I really can't recommend a telescope I am not familiar with.

Q: Why do some of the brightest stars in your images have tails?

A: This is an artifact of the camera, and is called blooming. The sensor in my camera is a CCD (or Charge-Coupled Device), which is composed of about 200,000 little buckets that collect light (actually the light is first converted to an electrical charge). Unfortunately these buckets can only hold so much before they overflow. So when something very bright shines on them they will overflow and spill over into adjacent buckets.


Q: Can you make a link to my homepage?

A: Short answer: No. Long answer: No. I don't have a dedicated page for links and don't really have a good place to put them. I only provide offsite links where appropriate, as I do not want my pages to turn into an index of other webpages. Maintaining offsite links is also a very time consuming process, and I would rather be doing productive things.

Q: How many hits does your website get?

A: As of September 27, 2002: Since I started keeping track in March 1997, I have gotten about 1,042,000 hits from approximately 88,000 people, coming from at least 95 different countries. These web pages first appeared in May, 1995. The website was NBC 7/39's Family Website of the Week in March, 1999.

Q: What HTML editor do you use?

A: Windows Notepad. That's right folks, no fancy WYSIWYG, not even a spell checker!

Q: How do you pronounce your last name?

A: Sponges (the squishy things you wash dishes with) rhymes with Bruenjes. Say it a few times and you will get it. If you're still unsure, listen to this MP3 file.


From here, you can go back to my main astronomy page, or check out my homepage.


Comments? Questions? Click here to send email to me, Fred Bruenjes.

All text and images are © 1995-2005 Manfred Bruenjes - All Rights Reserved. Image inlining is strictly prohibited. Email for permission before using an image or text.