What causes horizontal and vertical lines coming out of pictures of stars?
What causes the horizontal and vertical lines coming out of pictures of stars, instead of them simply appearing as circles? For example, this picture from Wikipedia:
.(I'd make this a comment, but no reputation yet.)
Minute Physics has a good video on this! Filtering light through any lens causes spikes that identify what kind of aperture was used. That looks like a Hubble picture because of the diamond spikes.
It is not to do with the circular aperture in the case shown.
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Content dated before 7/24/2021 11:53 AM
Mitch Goshorn 7 years ago
It should probably be noted that Fraunhofer diffraction is common in all kinds of photography, and is present in nearly every photo; though to greater degrees for photos with more closed apertures and far more obvious in high contrast situations provided by lights, like stars. Here is a great question in the Photography stack exchange on the topic, and another from Physics.