An astronomer can measure the light reaching a telescope without observing the distant object in its present state. Light takes time to travel. A photograph of a remote galaxy therefore records light that left it long before the photograph was taken. Improving the telescope may reveal fainter structures, but it does not shorten that journey. This distinction matters when images are described as windows onto the universe. They are windows onto different moments, not a single simultaneous scene. The delay is not merely an obstacle: it allows astronomers to investigate earlier stages of cosmic development. What prevents an image from showing a distant galaxy as it is now can make the same image valuable as evidence of the past. The limit of an observation becomes informative when the question is chosen accordingly.