Dr. Dijana Dominis Prester (University of Rijeka)
"Gravitational lensing effect in observational astrophysics"

Basic ideas of strong gravitational lensing effect, with the emphasis on microlensing and some of its applications in observational astrophysics, will be discussed in my talk.

One of important applications of microlensing is in searches for extrasolar planets. The highlight results of extrasolar planet detections within the PLANET collaboration using optical telescopes, and estimates of planet abundance in the Milky Way, will be shown. In the second part, I will focus on the gravitational lensing effect at extragalactic scales, in particular in gamma-ray astronomy.