Giant Cluster Bends, Breaks Images (2009 Aug 23)

[apodman]

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090823.html

A gravitational lens can create several images of background galaxies, analogous to the many points of light one would see while looking through a wine glass at a distant street light.

I guess we've ruled out atmospheric effects and window glass as the cause. Where are Barry & Noemi when you need them, anyway?

... looking through a wine glass at a distant street light.

Sounds like a hippie thing to do. I hear that, if you whirl that wine glass around a nearby light and then stop it, it takes several orbits for the detached trailing after-images to catch up and recombine. Don't try this at home. Is it true that Roy Rogers restaurants stopped wishing departing customers "Happy Trails" because it triggered flashbacks?

BTW, the APOD footer has undergone some distortion of its own (which will hopefully be corrected at some point and orphan this comment). The < and > links for APOD 090823 should point at APOD 090822 and APOD 090824, respectively, but instead they point at APOD 090823 and APOD 090825 - I momentarily thought I had lost my ability to click.

[neufer]

• • • 
  <<Lensing by a black hole. Animated simulation of gravitational lensing caused by a going past a background galaxy. A secondary image of the galaxy can be seen within the black hole Einstein ring on the opposite direction of that of the galaxy. The secondary image grows (remaining within the Einstein ring) as the primary image approaches the black hole. The surface brightness of the two images remain constant, but their angular size vary, hence producing an amplification of the galaxy luminosity as seen from a distant observer. The maximum amplification occurs when the background galaxy (or in the present case a bright part of it) is exactly behind the black hole.>>

Roy Rogers Riders Club Rule #6: Study hard and learn all you can.

[DavidLeodis]

It is a fascinating detailed image. Clicking on the APOD brings up an even wider field-of-view that shows numerous more galaxies. I guess in the Universe there may be at least 1 galaxy for each of us!

[neufer]

It is a fascinating detailed image. Clicking on the APOD brings up an even wider field-of-view that shows numerous more galaxies. I guess in the Universe there may be at least 1 galaxy for each of us!

I think that it is more like a dozen galaxies.

[DavidLeodis]

It is a fascinating detailed image. Clicking on the APOD brings up an even wider field-of-view that shows numerous more galaxies. I guess in the Universe there may be at least 1 galaxy for each of us!

I think that it is more like a dozen galaxies.

That should be quite enough for each of us!

[rstevenson]

... I guess in the Universe there may be at least 1 galaxy for each of us!

I think that it is more like a dozen galaxies.

That should be quite enough for each of us!

You never know; we might want to experiment a bit. "Let there be, er, um, ... light? No, no, that's already been done. Ummmm, let there be ... um, dark matter? No, that didn't work. Um, let there be ... ... "

[chupon]

Not sure where to post this, but the link back to Aug 22 is broken. It links back to the same page.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090823.html

[DavidLeodis]

The credit to this APOD (currently at least) states 'Credit: NASA, ESA, H. Lee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)' but in the related Hubble NewsCenter release STScI-2007-17 dated May 15 2007 that was brought up through a link in the explanation it states 'Credit: NASA, ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)'. I wonder which of H. Lee and M.J. Jee is correct.

[bystander]

The < and > links for APOD 090823 should point at APOD 090822 and APOD 090824, respectively, but instead they point at APOD 090823 and APOD 090825

the link back to Aug 22 is broken. It links back to the same page.

'<' and '>' links fixed.