iainsteele
Member
Yep, the arcs are distorted images of old red galaxies lensed by the cluster of galaxies - you can see they are concentric around "brightest cluster galaxy" - to imagine why they end up distorted into that shape, think about the distorted images you see through a crystal ball - the gravitational lens is similarly spherical.
The 6 spikes from the bright central star are caused by diffraction from the 6 edges of the hexagonal mirror segments - this gives a six spiked "point spread function" - you can only see them when the object is very bright (as the spikes are really very faint compared to the object) but are in fact present for every source in the image.
The 6 spikes from the bright central star are caused by diffraction from the 6 edges of the hexagonal mirror segments - this gives a six spiked "point spread function" - you can only see them when the object is very bright (as the spikes are really very faint compared to the object) but are in fact present for every source in the image.