Oh yeah. The starburst patterns absolutely are an unavoidable artifact of the axis correction in the lens. They are the result of diffraction doing Fourier optics on point light sources through an anisotropic (non-directionally symmetric) lens system.

As an example, here’s the James Webb Space Telescope, which has a hexagonal starburst pattern because its primary mirror is composed of hexagons (I believe the smaller horizontal spike is from the secondary mirror support strut):