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Lee, the idea of space expanding is indeed weird. It seems caused by "dark energy" but that's a term attached to a total mystery. As for telescopes, glad you have a 10-incher. What's in the photo is my old C-5 that I sometimes use when I need portability. My main observatory instruments, pier-mounted, are a research grade f/6 refractor, with a Takahashi 5-inch refractor mounted piggyback. About 130 pounds to drive, with another 130 pounds of counterweights! Love talking shop!
I don't know how much of this is exactly true. The possibility of a point of perspective outside of the universe is there, it just requires the existence of at least one more universe and a perceptual bridge between them. Just because we view space from the inside doesn't mean an outside view doesn't exist, at least in theory. There are certainly higher orders of spacial dimensions. There's no reason to think that the totality of the bubble of space-time that we float around in, couldn't also be floating around in a fourth(or fifth, or higher)-dimensional hyper-space ether.
We don't have to throw out the baby with the bath water on the concept of an ether in order to accept Einstein's relativity.
It depends on definitions. If the universe is defined as "everything" then you can never go outside of it, can you? So any imagined view from out there becomes an imaginary question....
I prefer Nikola Tesla's explanation better than Einstein's on the curvature of space anyway.
Is the galaxy expanding- is our galaxy and another we are comparing this thought to moving away from each other? Or is our galaxy moving through space away from others or are they moving away from us? :) ..as fun as it is to speculate and generate "thinking outside the box", I sure wish there was more of a foundation of truth shown to us. Rather than to just take someone's word for it, whether or not they believe they are telling the truth because someone else informed them of thinking this certain way, it'd just be comforting to believe everyone had our best interests lined up within the truth. :)
What's happening is that within each galaxy cluster, there's no expansion. In our own (called the "local group") the biggest galaxy is actually approaching our own Milky Way. But the space between clusters is growing larger. You can count on this much to be totally true.
I am an amateur astronomer and wonder about the expansion of space as a quality of space itself. If it was simply emptiness, it obviously could not have this property of elasticity. However, one of Einstein's great proofs was the non-existance of the ether, an assumption that space had to be filled by something. Whatever the space is between all the really big stuff, isnt an elastic space a throwback to the discarded concept of the ether?
The other question I have is the photo of you on this website.
What kind of telescope is that, and what is piggybacked on the right side. I own a 10 " SCT and it looks about the same size.