Just A Spare Thought...

I always had this concept in my mind but absolutely no idea whether it's possible or not.

We know, light takes 8 minutes 20 seconds to travel from Earth to Sun. So if we are looking at Sun at any time it's 8 minutes 20 seconds old. Now if we place a very high power camera with a great optical zoom at few light years say 10 years from Earth & zoom at Earth then wouldn't it possible to observe what was going on Earth 10 years ago? Wouldn't it be a time machine only difference it's not taking us physically at that time.

I know it would be literally impossible to place such camera but who had thought communications without wires few centuries ago! Just a crazy thought shared.