The misleading part is that readers don’t see that it’s provocative art until you carefully read the details. It’s presented like documentary evidence of what the problem looks like.
The photographer might not have intended it this way, but the writers of this post took advantage of that.
The misleading part is where he edited out the stars by hand.
> Much of the time was spent painstakingly erasing stars, to reveal the satellites.
The photographer wasn’t misleading. He made a cool photo. The headline is misleading.
> Much of the time was spent painstakingly erasing stars, to reveal the satellites.
These aren’t my words. It’s what the article says!
The final image appears to have a frame of stars added for effect, but they are dots rather than arcs because they’re from a single exposure. The satellite trails are a composite of all of the images, with the stars removed.