About this catalogue

cluster-models collects published strong-lensing models of galaxy clusters in one place: who modelled each cluster, with which data, whether the model can be downloaded and from where. It also records the programs that observed each cluster and the multiply-imaged transients found behind them.

It currently lists 194 clusters and 379 model entries. Entries are curated by hand from the literature, so coverage is not complete; corrections and additions are welcome.

How the data are kept

Every cluster is one YAML file in data/clusters/; this website is generated from those files. Programs, lensed transients, catalogue designations and references have their own files under data/. A check runs on every change and rejects malformed coordinates, unknown catalogue designations, designations that point somewhere else on the sky, broken internal links and look-alike characters (Unicode dashes, curly quotes, invisible spaces) in names.

Names, designations and coordinates are plain ASCII, so anything you copy from this site can be pasted into a script or a query form. Coordinates are J2000 and point at the cluster core, usually the brightest cluster galaxy, though some older catalogue positions are an arcminute or two off. Redshifts are reference values; each model's paper gives the one it used.

Until October 2026 the catalogue was a GitHub wiki. The migration report describes the conversion and every correction made along the way.

Adding or correcting an entry

Each cluster page has an Edit this entry on GitHub link that opens its file in GitHub's editor; saving proposes a change for review. A model entry looks like this:

models:
  - title: Bergamini et al. (2023)
    refs: [2023ApJ...952...84B]    # ADS bibcode, arXiv:NNNN.NNNNN or doi:...
    program: glass-jwst            # optional, see the Programs page
    data: [JWST, HST, MUSE]
    availability: public
    links:
      - label: Model download
        url: https://www.fe.infn.it/astro/lensing/A2744_Bergamini23/
    note: Short comment, Markdown allowed.

availability is one of public, on-request, upcoming, defunct, unavailable or unknown. The full field reference is in docs/data-format.md. You can also open an issue describing the change.

Machine-readable data

The whole catalogue is published with the site:

• data/clusters.csv and data/clusters.ecsv: one row per cluster
• data/models.csv: one row per model entry, with references, availability and links
• data/catalogue.json: everything, including programs, transients and references
• data/clusters/<name>.json and .yaml: single entries (linked from each cluster page)

url = "https://mbronikowski.github.io/cluster-models/data/"

from astropy.table import Table
clusters = Table.read(url + "clusters.ecsv", format="ascii.ecsv")

import pandas as pd
models = pd.read_csv(url + "models.csv")

Model files themselves stay with their authors; follow the links. If you download many models programmatically, please keep the request rate low.

Citing

The catalogue was developed as part of Bronikowski et al. (2025), A&A 697, A146. If it helps your work, please cite that paper, together with the original papers for any model you use. The repository includes a citation file.

Licence

The catalogue data (everything under data/) is released under CC BY 4.0; the code under the MIT licence. Images on cluster pages keep their own credits and licences. Interactive sky views use Aladin Lite and HiPS surveys served by CDS, Strasbourg.

Typeface: Atkinson Hyperlegible Next (SIL Open Font License), chosen because it keeps look-alike characters such as 0/O and 1/l distinct.