The picture is not captured by lenses, or an optical telescope at all. It is created by inverting the data received at eight radio telescopes (or eighty individ

The picture is not captured by lenses, or an optical telescope at all. It is created by inverting the data received at eight radio telescopes (or eighty individual dishes) around the world. And the smoothing is just due to the inherent limit in the resolving power of the telescope array. The impressive bit is that we see more than a single bright dot.