Developing a Catalog of All Known Strong Gravitational Lenses

Strong gravitational lensing is the deflection of light by gravity due to the chance alignment of celestial objects. Massive objects can create a gravitational field strong enough to visibly bend the light of another object. For the lensing to be visible the source, lens, and observer must be aligned correctly. When the deflection of light by a massive object is easily visible it is known as strong lensing. Four goal is to create a catalog of all the known cases of strong gravitational lensing. Using this catalog, we will look for patterns in spatial density on the celestial sphere. Researchers have previously attempted to create such a catalog, but none have been completed. Once finished, this catalog will be the first of its kind. Currently, our list stands at 1832 strong lenses. We believe our list is almost complete and are in the final stages of data collection. Aside from spatial density, we plan on analyzing other properties of the lenses such as redshift distribution, Einstein radius, and mass.