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To: traderrob6
But that 6500 light years from earth. Would not a telescope span both space and, then hence, time?

A telescope doesn't span anything. You may as well talk about your eyes spanning both time and space. A telescope doesn't do anything that your eyes don't already do, in principle--it is just able to capture a lot more light over a longer period of time with greater resolution and, depending on the scope and its instrumentation, in wavelengths shorter or longer than your eyes are able to deal with. You're seeing, in this case, fresh starlight from 6500 years ago. Think of it as a letter than is usually delivered in three days but, instead, getting delivered 60 years later. You read that someone is planning a ski outing to which you are invited but by the time you receive the letter, the outing is long over and everyone is too old or too dead to ski. It's the letter that is spanning time and space, not your opening and reading it.
10 posted on 02/04/2012 8:40:18 AM PST by aruanan
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To: aruanan

Just the light that reaches the telescope not the other way around. I can stand in my yard and photograph the other end of the lake but I don’t have to go there to do it.

Also the Hubble photos are all long exposures which means very dim objects can be imaged.


11 posted on 02/04/2012 8:50:13 AM PST by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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