Starship Asterisk*

There are many strange blue spots in the picture. Many of these blue spots are in close proximity just below star images. What are these blue spots?

It appears that the image is a composite. The diffraction spikes on the two lowest bright stars are rotated about 45 degrees from those in the rest of the image. In addition the bottom right corner of the image has very low resolution.

Over the years I have enjoyed counting the Pleiades. In poor seeing I have generally gotten six stars. In better seeing I have been able to count anywhere from eight to eleven or so stars. I have never encountered conditions where the count stopped at seven. Thus I have long been puzzled by the name...

The hollows look a lot like corrosion pits in metals or other materials.

There are four fuzzy areas in the picture, top and bottom near the center and top and bottom further right. What is the cause of these areas. Since they are placed top and bottom it seems to me that they are likely to be artifacts rather than of astronomical significance. Does anyone out there know ...