What's the furthest object observed in deep space and what method do they use to look out that far?

Question

What's the furthest object observed in deep space and what method do they use to look out that far?

Answer 1

The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is by far the farthest observed phenomenon.  There's good reason to believe that it will remain that way.

If you tune your NTSC TV to a non-station, a small part of the noise you see is the CMBR.  It's the right frequency.

Most of the CMBR does not make it to the ground.  So the COBE satellite was orbited to make the first observations.  Currently, the WMAP satellite is stationed at L2 looking at it.  The Plank satellite is scheduled for launch as the WMAP replacement.  We don't need continuous coverage, we're just getting better at building sensitive detectors.

Answer 2

I'd also like to know

Answer 3

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field.  The deepest part of our universe that we have seen, over 13 billion (13,000,000,000) Light-Years away.