I was making those squiggles, as well as finely tune patterns in the early 80’s with a 5mw SpectraPhysics Helium Neon Laser tube and a bit of first surface mirror mounted off center on a speaker’s cone with a little pyramid of double sticky foam tape.
Using a home made battery powered high voltage power supply, I would bounce the beam off the mirror onto things like “El Capitan” in Yosemite.
(It “danced” to the music.)
It would be a long time before I could downsize that system with a pocket laser pointer.
Pro Tip:
To get controlled patterns from a telescope when trying to make images like those, stick a small speaker onto your scope, and gently drive it with musical chords.