Abstract We identify new strong lensing clusters of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS DR8) by visually inspecting color images of a large sample of clusters of galaxies. We find 68 new clusters showing giant arcs in addition to 30 known lensing systems. Among 68 cases, 13 clusters are “almost certain” lensing systems with tangential giant arcs, 22 clusters are “probable” and 31 clusters are “possible” lensing systems. We also find two exotic systems with blue rings. The giant arcs have angular separations of 2.0′′ −25.7′′ from the bright central galaxies.We note that the rich clusters are more likely to be lensing systems and the separations between arcs and the central galaxies increase with cluster richness.
Keywords galaxies: clusters: general— gravitational lensing
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