How big and powerful can we make a space telescope without having it turn into a black hole?

Well to become a black hole it would have to be a star. A really big one.

@Darth_Algar Yes a large telescope or even a dyson sphere.

A telescope could not become a black hole.

Chandrasekhar limit Any thing the mass or limit can become a star and eventually a black hole.

Twenty times the size of the Sun (and Mass) ? ? ?

How big a telescope are you talking ?

How much light can you collect? How well can you focus (concentrate) it?

@Tropical_Willie A space telescope the size between the distance between Our sun and Alpha Centauri. Could Aliens 65 Million Light Years Away from Earth See Dinosaurs Alive?

A telescope 4.3 light years across?

@Darth_Algar Yes. From this 5 minute YouTube video.
Could Aliens 65 Million Light Years Away from Earth See Dinosaurs Alive?

@stanleybmanly By having a large aperture solar systems large.

There are other limiting factors, one being the limits inherent in the wavelengths of the light when it’s time to focus it.

According to the video, a telescope 28 light minutes long would collapse into a black hole so we are limited in how much of the universe we can see.

I’d say maybe a little bit bigger than the Hubble!!!

A telescope will never have enough mass per unit area to become a black hole.

99.9 % of the solar systems mass is in the Sun, it is too small. Maybe if the Sun was ten or twenty times as big it could become a black hole.

The thirty meter telescope (“TMT”) that may be built on top of Mauna Kea (Hawaii big Island) is suppose to be able to collect light at the edge of the universe. If it can do that then it will be like looking back in time billions of years. Also the TMT might be able to see planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy. Sad that the illegal protesters will likely stop the TMT from being built.

I’ve also read that a telescope with a larger than 50 meter mirror wouldn’t yield significant more scientific information.

The telescope would be a few hundred million miles long. The number of stars in our own galaxy should easily cover that. Being able to extract the material is another matter.

And, of course, getting to those stars and planets would take thousands of years each, and require more fuel than could be carried there.

Our solar system, and anything else accessible, does not contain enough physical matter to comprise such an object.

Or creatures with the skills to manage anything so colossal.