Asynchronous Observations

I would argue that we lack fundamental data when making observations of distant objects. A few light years distance is irrelevant to the basic argument--that if time is a key component of location, our observations become increasingly meaningless as distance increases. I think that's what I mean, but I'm a bit confused now.

Time and location are parts of a whole, which we see as we see it. Locations which are hundreds, thousands, millions . . . of lights years away, are locations we see as history gone by. Our temporal state, our now, is out of sync with the location we are observing.

Are we missing the temporal data we need to truly understand what we are seeing? Are all of our observations based on the speed of light. Our observations are temporal--nothing without the passage of time. Is there a distortion of some kind, when our present intersects with another observer's past?