Final answer:
With a telescope, observable details on stars are limited by lens quality, atmospheric disturbance, and mirror imperfections. Larger apertures lead to better resolution, and space telescopes like Hubble can surpass ground-based ones. Modern technologies like adaptive optics enhance our ability to resolve fine details in space.
Step-by-step explanation:
When viewing the surface details of stars through a telescope, the amount of observable detail is influenced by several factors, including the quality of the telescope's lens and atmospheric conditions. Ground-based telescopes face challenges such as atmospheric disturbance, which can limit the resolution and clarity of the images captured. Even with modern advances, imperfections in telescope mirrors can cause slight blurring of the stars' light.
The size of the telescope's aperture is a principal factor in determining the resolution of the images it can produce. Larger apertures allow for sharper images, but even today, ground-based telescopes may not achieve the theoretical maximum sharpness due to atmospheric interference. In comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope, being above Earth's atmosphere, can capture more precise details of galaxies and stars, as evidenced by photographs of the M82 galaxy compared to those taken using ground-based telescopes.
Despite these challenges, modern telescopes have greatly improved our capacity to see details in space. Adaptive optics and infrared telescope technologies enable us to observe crowded regions of individual stars and witness phenomena such as the wind from a forming star clearing away the obscuring envelope of dust and gas, revealing the disk and protostar beneath.