Looking at this pic of the Orion nebula it looks like even the smoothest, darkest areas have tons of stars in them: * https://orion2020v5b.spaceforeverybody.co

Looking at this pic of the Orion nebula it looks like even the smoothest, darkest areas have tons of stars in them: * https://orion2020v5b.spaceforeverybody.com/ https://orion2020v5b.spaceforeverybody.com/ This is also a much smaller area of the sky. The higher acuity of the image might actually be more representative of what the telescope actually sees. The smooth darkness you are used to seeing might be similar to how some people prefer music where the treble rolls off (like tube amps or sennheizer 650s headphones) vs people preferring a more linear freq response.