Comment by leto_ii

Since I'm a complete noob at astronomy, I wanted to ask a couple of basic questions about the image:

1. What causes the bright flares/flashes around some bright starts/galaxies?

2. What are the elongated traces that look as if the telescope moved/rotated while capturing the image?

3. Why do some of the smaller flares seem to be doubled (e.g. 3 stars in the top-right corner of the image)?

Thanks in advance to anybody patient enough to explain.