Galaxies as Gravitational Lenses

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Abstract
Of all the galaxies in the visible part of the universe, 500 million are seen through intervening galaxies. In some instances the foreground galaxy will act as a gravitational lens and produce distorted and (in brightness) greatly amplified images of the galaxy behind it; such images may simulate starlike superluminous objects such as quasars (quasi-stellar objects). The number of gravitational lenses is several times greater than the number of quasars yet observed. In other instances the superposition of the image upon a visible foreground galaxy may simulate morphological configurations resembling N-type, dumbbell, spiral, or barred-spiral galaxies.