actually it may be that they are so small on a normal lens that they are just zoomed to the point where they look like that. (I can only assume he had the camera set to infinity.)
No, it's the focus that's off. If you zoom in on a point source (like a distant light), you will still have a point source. If you defocus a point source (even one located at infinity), you will have the blobs just like in the picture.