system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do telescopes work so well? How can the placement of a few lenses in a particular order help us see celestial objects light years away?
gpt
You can see objects light years away with the naked eye. Every star in the sky (except the Sun) is light years away. Light travels forever until it hits something, so there is no range limit.

All a telescope does is magnify an image that is already there. Basically, it takes the light that hits it from a very very narrow angle, and bends the light to spread it out to create an image you can see more clearly. Since all you are doing is bending light, lenses and/or mirrors are all that is needed to accomplish this.