Optical appearance of the gravitational lens system B0218+35.7
Abstract
We present high-resolution CCD images (FWHM=0.6"-0.7") of the compact gravitational lens system B0218+35.7 obtained at the Nordic Optical Telescope. Using aperture and PSF photometry we detect the two closely separated (335 mas) components A and B as well as the lensing galaxy. In the optical B seems to be very much brighter than A, opposite to the radio morphology. This suggests that most of the light from A is absorbed in the lensing galaxy, possibly by a giant molecular cloud located in the line-of-sight to component A. The lensing galaxy appears to be a late-type galaxy at a small inclination. For future variability studies we present calibrated photometry of the system and its immediate surroundings, even though the relative faintness of A will make it difficult to obtain an optical time delay even with the Hubble Space Telescope.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9506085,
title = {Optical appearance of the gravitational lens system B0218+35.7},
author = {F. Grundahl and J. Hjorth},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9506085},
year = {2016}
}