  It has been recently shown that the lens equation for a binary gravitational
lens, which is apparently a coupled system, can be reduced to a real
fifth-order (quintic) algebraic equation. Some algebraic properties of the real
quintic equation are revealed. We find that the number of images on each side
of the separation axis is independent of the mass ratio and separation unless
the source crosses the caustics. Furthermore, the discriminant of the quintic
equation enables us to study changes in the number of solutions, namely in the
number of images. It is shown that this discriminant can be factorized into two
parts: One represents the condition that the lens equation can be reduced to a
single quintic equation, while the other corresponds to the caustics.
