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Originally Posted by afterburner
How far will a star have to be from an observer unitll the observer starts noticing big gaps of space where he cannot see the star. (even through a telescope)
just to make it more clear...if we put a telescope on one side of the universe, and a star on the other side, will the telescope pick up the photons from that star, or would they have scattered so much that we wouldnt be able to see the star at all?
im wondering becasue if light has a wave function, then technically the photons should be seen from an infinite distance (since the wave goes in all directions, forever, or am i wrong?)...but im thinking the star just wont be able to produce enough photons. hence the question...at what distance will this happen (not being able to see the star with a powerful telescope)?
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This works the same whether you view light as particles or waves. The intensity drops with the square of distance for the start, so to be able to see something as you move it farther away, you need a bigger and bigger telescope. If you want to think of the light as an electromagnetic wave, then you can think of the telescope as a device to concentrate the effects of a varying electromagnetic field so that you have a large enough amplitude at a specific spot to be able to measure it, when it would otherwise be too small to measure. If you want to think of light as photons, then you can think of the telescope as a device to collect incoming photons over a larger area and redirecting them all to a single point. Either way, in principle you can see a star at any distance, as long as you have a big enough telescope.