richard-lensed

Lensed galaxies and spectroscopic slits

These are two examples of gravitational lensing. The arcs are the background galaxy, distorted (into the arc shape) and magnified by the foreground galaxy seen nearby. The reason you see several arcs, or a small counter image is because lensing can also create multiple images of the background galaxy. The red lines indicate the slit used for spectroscopy.

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