They talk about your option in 5.11, "Einstein rings." For reasons that I don't understand (but I don't understand anything about optics) they come to the conclusion that the gravitational lens would have to be really large, and it is unlikely that such a large, well-structured lens would exist.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.14805
They talk about your option in 5.11, "Einstein rings." For reasons that I don't understand (but I don't understand anything about optics) they come to the conclusion that the gravitational lens would have to be really large, and it is unlikely that such a large, well-structured lens would exist.