On Monday, February 19, 2018 at 12:42:16 AM UTC, RichA wrote:
I saw this in a 1966 Sky & Tel. Since it happened in 1988, the event proceeded existing proof of lensing, but his would have been "real-time" and not just a static image.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17842091

The originator of relativity was looking around for something to pin 'warped space' to and decided on a celestial sphere universe in what must be the funniest passage of the early 20th century and before galaxies were observed as separate entities -

"This view is not in harmony with the theory of Newton. The latter theory rather requires that the universe should have a kind of centre in which the density of the stars is a maximum, and that as we proceed outwards from this centre the group-density of the stars should diminish, until finally, at great distances, it is succeeded by an infinite region of emptiness. The stellar universe ought to be a finite island in the infinite ocean of space.
This conception is in itself not very satisfactory. It is still less satisfactory because it leads to the result that the light emitted by the stars and also individual stars of the stellar system are perpetually passing out into infinite space, never to return, and without ever again coming into interaction with other objects of nature. Such a finite material universe would be destined to become gradually but systematically impoverished." 1920

http://www.bartleby.com/173/30.html

Not much can be said but just plain hilarious on many levels and points.