NGC 3079 is the small spiral galaxy in this image. Found
in the constellation Ursa Major, it is 50 million light years
from earth. That may sound like a long way away (and it is!), but
it is our next door neighbor compared to the unimpressive looking
object (apparently 2 objects) between the red lines on this image.
There you'll see a quasar, the most luminous kind of object in the
universe. Quasars are the incredibly powerful cores of galaxies that
are energized by super massive black holes gobbling up stars and other
material. And all quasars are very far from earth. This one, in fact,
is 9 BILLION light years away! The light recorded here started its
journey before our solar system existed.

There is in fact only one quasar between the red lines on this image, despite
the fact that you see two distinct, small dots. Between us and the quasar
is another massive object, a giant elliptical galaxy (invisible in this
image, and 3.7 billion light years from earth). Einstein predicted that
massive objects actually warp space itself, and so light's path would be
"bent" by passing near such objects. This quasar was recognized in 1979
as proof that Einstein was right. The invisible galaxy has acted like a
telescope's lens, and its gravity has bent and focused the light from
the distant quasar. Because the galaxy's effect is not perfectly
symmetrical, we see two images of the same distant object.

Image data:
Camera: SBIG ST-4000XCM
Exposure: 2 hours (10 minutes x 12)
Telescope: 10" Schmidt-Newtonian, Baader MPCC

This image has been cropped from the original.