"The Einstein Cross" A Quadruple Lensed Quasar

The image is centred on a galaxy also named PGC 69457 or Huchra’s lens in 400 million light years distance in the constellation Pegasus. The galaxy is perfectly aligned in our sight-line with a distant quasar behind it. Strong gravitational lensing splits the light into 4 different cross-shaped images, discovered in 1985. The quasar's redshift of 1.7  indicates that it is located about 8 billion light years from Earth. The apparent dimensions of the entire foreground galaxy are 0.87 × 0.34 arc-minutes, while the apparent dimension of the cross in its centre accounts for only 1.6 × 1.6 arc-seconds.

Find more information on the history of gravitational lensing here: http://www.einstein-online.info/spotlights/grav_lensing_history.1.html

Find a Hubble Space Telescope image of the Einstein Cross here: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1204a/

Image data:
LRGB (400-140-140-140 min) total 13.7 h, north is right, seeing 0.7-1.1 arc-sec,
80cm f/7 Astrooptik Keller cassegrain, FLI PL-16803, Astrodon gen2 filters, Prompt 7 CTIO Chile

Processing: Johannes Schedler

Find here a 20 arc-min field exposure with an insert on the Einstein Cross lensed quasar in 4x size size in 30/60% size below, 100% size here, as well as a 60% labeled version: here. 

The high resolution within the cross could be achieved by using only a few sharpest raw images for the processing of the cross area.

 click for 60% size

Last modified on Sunday, 06 October 2019 21:32

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