Question for astronomy buffs.

[grumpyduck]

Like probably many of us, I often ponder weird stuff in the shower. Most of it just comes and goes, but this thought, from a few days ago, kinda stuck in there.

We are told that the vast majority of the objects we see in the sky are anywhere from a few to several million lights-years away, i.e., at different distances. So what we see up there is the light from where these objects were a long time ago. And the universe is expanding.

So, it would seem to follow that what we see up there isn't a "real" picture: it's more like a composite picture of where all these objects were (in our viewpoint) at many different times in the past. For all we know, the constellations, as we see them, may not even "exist" any more. And that supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be a lot bigger.

And that leads to the other thought: when we see a planet, we are seeing where it was when sunlight hit it, but it's not there "now," because the light from the planet takes a while to reach us.

Did all that hot water screw up my brain?