RELICS Clusters

We selected 41 clusters yet to be observed by HST at near-IR wavlengths (1-2 microns) with NICMOS or WFC3/IR. These include 21 of the 34 most massive clusters according to Planck (2015 PSZ2 catalog) with masses similar to (or greater than) the Frontier Fields clusters. To select the remaining 20, we gave preference to exceptional lenses as observed in existing imaging, especially by leveraging previous investments in HST optical imaging. We also considered X-ray mass estimates (MCXC Piffaretti+11; Mantz+10); weak lensing mass estiamtes (Sereno+14 compliation including Weighing the Giants (WtG) Applegate+14, von der Linden+14a; Umetsu+14; Hoekstra+15); SDSS clusters (Wong+13, Wen+12); SZ mass estimates from SPT (Bleem+14) and ACT (Hasselfield+13); and clusters nearly selected for the Frontier Fields.

Click for an interactive plot:


Examples of exceptional strong lensing observed in RELICS clusters ranked #2, 13, 36, 91, and 376 in Planck mass (PSZ2 catalog):


Complete cluster list (click to open spreadsheet):