CONSPICUOUS TANGENTIAL ALIGNMENT OF FAINT BLUE AND RED OBJECTS IN CLUSTER 0024+1654

We report a study of correlation between color B-I7800 and tangential alignment caused by gravitational distortion of faint objects in Cl 0024 + 1654. Along with the better known gravitational distortion of blue background galaxies, we find a highly significant alignment of red objects with color in a very narrow range, 2.7 less-than-or-equal-to B-I less-than-or-equal-to 2.8. The objects responsible for this red alignment signal can be elliptical galaxies belonging to a cluster at redshift z(r) less than or similar to 1.8. A speculative possibility is that these objects are primordial galaxies at z(r) = 5.5 and Lyalpha active. Remarkably, Cl 0024 + 1654 plays a role of an optical attachment to a man-made telescope which enables us to detect members of a very distant cluster of galaxies statistically, by their color and tangential alignment. The method described here is very simple and can be routinely used to investigate galaxy clustering in the early universe.