bodyload

So using 'regular' optics that don't measure outside the field of human's visual wavelength field (or using 'regular' optics of/within the range of human-eye visual wavelengths), how far into the past can we see using our best optics (in and out of Earth's atmosphere)?

I have a better question: How do you stop persistent hallucinations without drugs?

Ephedra.

OK. So in most cases the whole idea of 'seeing' the 'history' of the universe through 'old light' does not apply to how optics work on the superficial of a man setting up a telescope in the park? And also you are saying that the light that has reached us is so dispersed that shall we have a powerful telescope (yet of the 'run-of-the-mill' type of eye-telescope optics) that we can see a more 'compact', older signal of light (shall we look further)? -------- My other question is when you have a constant 'stream' of light coming at you, is there some sort of focusing mechanism on these extremely complex telescopes that allows you to capture an 'mri-like' slice of that million year old image-in-time? What allows one to distinguish the relative time the photons (or waves) were emitted? Because aren't you catching all the photons (or waves) at any one measured-time?

I am a firm believer that the further you look into space with a telescope the older the transmissions of light one can see, and therefore shall you be in a distant galaxy and you observe Earth with a very powerful telescope that you may be able to see Earth during, perhaps say, the Jurassic Period. But it wasn't until I began to become involved in optics that I began to have some questions. I know that light travels ~186,000 miles/second. I also know that the larger the aperture, the more light is able to be collected. But the speed of light is constant. On the face of things, it began to become apparent to me that the light hitting the telescope lenses is hitting the eye at essentially the same time. It seems to me that no matter the size of the aperture, and whether light is both a particle and a wave, that there would be a succession of years and years of light coming at the telescope that is still bound by the speed of light. So the example which is easiest for me to understand is if a star burns out, our eyes and weak telescopes will see nothing. But if we point a very very powerful telescope to the area of the burned out star, that we can still observe the light that it had emitted in all its glory, perhaps that from billions of years ago, when it was a strong glowing star. But regardless of the lens that you use, light travels at a finite speed. ------------- What allows us to catch the emitted waves or particles of energy faster with an extremely powerful telescope? Is it just the specific lens used or the aperture size? (ie- bigger aperture size=more light allowed in) Is it just bouncing back and forth transmissions from radio telescopes that is orientating to us, Humans, the location of the light and, then forth, the time at which that particular 'light' was emitted? Is it just in adjusting the telescope's focus-point to discover the age of the light? What is it about Telescopic lenses that allow us to see faster than the human eye?