[.cnI redruM]

I actually went to a talk once on Gravitational Lensing. The phenomena is similar to some of the optical effects that you get when you observe visible light. The visual images the professor showed me reminded me of Sun Dogs, Halos etc....

I'm not sure it's the light being bent as much as it being refracted and reflected an innumerable number of times between the observer and the emitter. A black hole would leave a rather impressive absorption/scattering "footprint" from it's physical size alone.

[RadioAstronomer]

A link you might like.

http://astron.berkeley.edu/~jcohn/lens.html

[RightWhale]

as it being refracted

It looks like a lens has been formed out of space in the vicinity of a massive object. It looks like refraction to me, but we have been operating under Kant's system for a long time now: the object in itself can never be seen, but what we see conforms to our pre-conceived ideas. That is, objects conform to our concepts rather than our concepts conforming to objects. You can see only what your mind is ready to see.

[Eagle9]

I actually went to a talk once on Gravitational Lensing. The phenomena is similar to some of the optical effects that you get when you observe visible light.

I've been fascinated by how sound waves affected the following photograph, taken by Chris Rossi. This is Richard Noble's ThrustSSC, piloted by Andy Green at Blackrock, Nevada, on October 15, 1997, as it it set the world's first supersonic speed record. See the clearly visable waves above the car?

Source of photo: http://www.andrewgraves.biz/ssc_stuff/SSC_pics.htm
Official ThrustSSC Web Site