When I look out into the night sky and I espy the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is at a distance of 152,000 light years, or 893 551 056 723 922 432 miles, am I actually looking that far or does the light only become visible from a certain distance?
Understanding that the light is constantly moving towards me, where is the Human Optical limit?
All the stars we see are located within the Milky Way.
The only objects we can observe unaided outside the Milky Way are the two Magellanic Clouds, The Andromeda Galaxy and in optimal conditions the Triangulum Galaxy M33
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< this far >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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The further away an object is, the faster it is moving away. The light becomes stretched in frequency and shifts to the red, eventually becoming infra-red and invisible to the human eye, as well as its intensity falling away due to the inverse square law.
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Brilliant, explanatory article. Thank you.
Now here’s a fact that may surprise you: There is no intrinsic limit to the smallest or farthest thing we can see. So long as an object of whatever size, distance or brevity transfers a photon to a retinal cell, we can spy it.