Oh, a fair[0] amount[1]

0 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_optical_refl...

1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_optical_telesc...

That's, ahhh, kind of obvious and missing the point about the wavelengths more commonly used in modern astrophysics.

A better rejoiner would've have pointed out the optics-like bending and focusing of all wavelengths about gravitational wells, eg:

https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2022/05/02/gravity-...

works for more than just the visible wavelengths.

If that was the point you were trying to make, it might have been better to state it rather than link to two articles about radio astronomy and ask “what does optics have to do with telescopes”

Reflective and refractive optical telescopes are still important (and still being built.)

Everything. Light is not only the one in the visible spectrum.

... or RF engineering.

Indeed! I think elecrical engineers cover the largest "area" in today's engineering landscape in terms of both breadth and depth, encompassing applied physics, math, and cs. An electrical engineer can understand and potentially work on converting RF to electrical signals, process them to extract bits, program a computer to decode those bits, and convert those bits into a human consumable format.

Of course each of those areas is filled with decades of progress that requires in-depth expertise, but if there's a discipline that can go deep enough into each of them, it's probably EE.

You can use similar methods and EE skills to look downwards rather than upwards by measuring and differencing not-RF fluctuating sources ...

https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/disciplines/geophysi...