re: image URL
Cool. Any number of hypotheses are possible that have nothing to do with stars. And if the multi-generation copy is supposedly AUTHENTIC re the stars, while the 'original' had been 'erased', what is your hypothesis for the later copy still retaining the 'stars'? Isn't it much more plausible that the white dots were added -- accidentally or aesthetically -- by the later private user of the image? Why not find out by asking?