Okay, I'm back to square one.  I'm bothered by getting any points at all. I want
rings.

Say your interposed object is a super-dense ball (in case I don't understand
"circular symmetry")  in front of a star, then you would get a ring.  If it's
off to the side, don't you get a distorted ring instead of points?

Unless the magnetism of the interposed ball has an effect on the light, or the
polarized photons from the star are affected by gravity in some way, you should
get a band of light and not discrete points.  Or maybe magnetism of the
intervening ball affects how its material is "available" for lensing, making an
assymetrical lens.  There's gotta be one more phenomenon at work besides
gravity.


"Tom York" <alp### [at] zubenelgenubi34spcom> wrote:

> The third and fifth images form close to the centre of mass (and light), and
> unlike the other images are strongly demagnified instead of boosted by the lens
> effect. This means that they are usually not observable, and it's common to talk
> of two- or four- image systems as a result.
>
> Tom

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