Eli5 Why can’t microscopes and telescopes be used interchangeably?
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If you imagine the surface of an object as a light source emitting a sphere of light in all directions. If you are very far away then the light rays you see will all be effectively parallel to each other. The radius of the sphere of light being emitted is so large that locally it seems flat.
Conversely when you are very close to the object these light rays are diverging quickly, there is a large angle between them.
Telescopes are designed to look at distant objects, the light of which is effectively parallel. They take parallel beams of light and focus them down to a single point.
Microscopes are designed to look at close objects, they take strongly diverging rays and focus them down to a single point.
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