This is one of those things that I know doesn’t work, but I don’t know the exact reason WHY it doesn’t work. I remember asking a friend in 7th grade biology why I can’t just put a telescope up to a microscope to see even more detail, but he just laughed and no one I’ve ever asked has given me an answer
In: Physics
So yes, theoretically the two are similar, and yes, you might be able to change or add a lens on a microscope to focus on something far away, or change or add a lens on a telescope to focus on something close, but there is a big difference to point out. Most telescopes have pretty big lenses, or the overall diameter. This is because they need to capture a ton of light from really far away.
Now, let’s try to focus that onto something really close. To focus that lens on something just a mm or less away, the light from the far edge of the lens is going to be close to sideways as it trys to focus on the object. While this is theoretically possible, it’s probably going to cause a weird looking image as the image might look like a inverted fish eye lens. Realistically though, the diameter is probably too wide for a lens to focus on something that close with just 1 change or additional lens.
On the flip side, a microscope lens is too small to capture enough light from objects far away. Maybe you could use one to look at a really bright object, like the sun, but in general you need to capture much more light to be visible to your eye, and even most camera sensors. Basically you are trying to look at something super far away through a pin hole. It’s going to be really difficult to focus on that thing really far away when you don’t have enough information (via light) to see it.
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