No: telescopes are tools to study the universe, just as computers are tools for studying computation.

I don't look at computers as tools for studying computation. Instead, they are tools for performing computation.

"A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build." - Fred Brooks

perhaps performing computations is to studying computation as observing the universe through a telescope is to studying it.

> perhaps performing computations is to studying computation as observing the universe through a telescope is to studying it.

This is an interesting thought, but the two seem fundamentally different in nature (active vs passive).

Yes, and to a certain extent, you can study computation without a digital computer. Computation can be abstracted away from the devices that perform it. You can, for example, study Big O notation and theoretical computational complexity of algorithms without actually using a computer.