Illustration of gravitational lensing (not to scale). The light from the distant quasar is bent by the gravitational field of an intervening spiral galaxy placed fortuituously near the line of sight. The bending produces two artifact images of the quasar, which are observed by the eSMA. The spiral galaxy itself is located at large distances from the sun, corresponding to only 45% of the current age of the universe. Credit: spiral (M100): INT/Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope/Johan Knapen/Nik Szymanek; star field: INT/Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope/Cornwall Astronomy School Project; montage: S. Bottinelli
