The first sentence literally says it’s a multi image composite so…

That’s not the misleading part. You don’t need an explanation to see that it’s a composite.

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.

There's nothing misleading about removing light sources to reveal other light sources. You're speaking as though they erased all the sky's stars. The image is full of stars. This is petty.

I’m quoting the article where the photographer erased the stars from the frames:

> 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.

Do you understand how composite images work and why they are used?

Clearly you do since everyone is up in arms about making a composite image. There are still a bunch of stars in the image.