Adam Frank marvels at the depths of time we see when we look up:
Catch a glimpse of a relatively nearby star and you see it as it existed when, perhaps, Lincoln was president (if it's 150 light-years away). Stars near the edge of our own galaxy are only seen as they appeared when the last ice age was in full bloom (30,000 light-years away). And those giant pinwheel assemblies of stars called galaxies are glimpsed, as they existed millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of years in the past. We never see the sky as it is, but only as it was.
(Video: A "fly-through of the known universe," 6df Galaxy Survey fly through from ICRAR)
The Dish 