• Question: how far can you see with a telerscope

    Asked by anon-245580 to Lori-Ann, David on 19 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Lori-Ann Foley

      Lori-Ann Foley answered on 19 Mar 2020:

      It depends how big your telescope is. The bigger it is, the further it can see. I have my own telescope and I love using it. It is great for the moon and planners but nebula and galaxies can be a bit blurry. But it is still amazing to see them. Have you seen how incredibly bright Venus is at the moment? Just after sunset look to the west and the big bright light in the sky is Venus.

    • Photo: David Sobral

      David Sobral answered on 19 Mar 2020:

      With a micro-wave telescope we can see as far as 13.78 billion years into the past, that’s around 430000000000000000000000 km! Incredibly far away! Micro-wave telescopes allow us to see what happened in the Universe at a time that no star or galaxy or planet existed and then the first tiny building blocks of matter (atoms) formed for the first time!

      With more “normal” telescopes, we can see galaxies all the way to about 30000000000000000000000 km, so 10 times closer, but still incredibly far away.

      I have discovered the brightest galaxy in the super distant Universe, COSMOS Redshift 7 or CR7, which is at a distance of 27000000000000000000000 km !!

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