Arguably, our ability to observe in any meaningful sense is still limited to light waves occuring inside a volume not much larger than the earth itself. I mean this in more than just a semantic sense surrounding the verb "observe" -- for all practical purposes everything outside of our solar system is indistinguishable from a preprogrammed light show being projected on a sphere centered on our sun with a diameter of less than a light year. There is a decent chance that will never change. The sheer size of the universe traps us in the ultimate version of Plato's cave.