Wow! How far can you see with your telescope?

[vincentnm]

This is by far the most common question people ask me when they see the Celestron 9.25 sitting on top the EQ6. This question usually irritates me and then I go on about:

"It's not as much about how far, but its about angular resolution"

"and ability to see really faint objects as far as mag xx"

But then, reflecting on the question, there probably is a good answer. If I could re-phrase the question in astro talk as:

"What is the farthest object out there I can see within the Limiting Magnitude of my setup, under a dark sky, at the zenith, in good seeing conditions, with well adapted dark vision, a reasonably healthly male in early thirties ?"

A couple of billion light years away? Anyone like to speculate on a ball park figure?

Regards,

Vincent.

[ChrisEdu]

You start getting into some pretty mind blowing distances. Mind you, you could just tell people you can see far enough to watch the neighbours getting dressed! That should give them something to think about!

[George]

Well a wild guess is you seeing light that left the object before Earth was born....that's pretty mind boggling in its own right :shock: :shock:

[Wedge]

With the naked eye you can see as far as 2.3 million light years :shock:

So MILLIONS of light years away with a telescope - it is almost unimaginable!

Remy

[kniclander]

I've seen galaxies in the virgo cluster in my scope reckoned to be about 50 - 70 million light years away. I read (somewhere, I wish I could remember now) that there was a GRB that could be seen in an amateur scope that was some billions of light years away :shock: . Does that ring any bells with anyone? (guess they'd have to be quite loud bells at that distance)

dan

[philipok]

I think the quasar 3c273 in Virgo is at the limit of a scope like that? that's 2 billion light years.

philip

[Astronut]

"How far can you see with that thing?" has got to be the most common question asked.

I just resign myself to saying "alot further than I can without it". It's just easier that way.