Prior to the digital age, I was a photographer for many years and I am familiar with lens flare leaving visible artifacts in the picture. I wonder if this is the case with these cell phone photos of Elenin. I am not familiar with the lenses used in cell phones, or infrared photo technology. I have done 'a little' research on the net in this area. This site http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/observing/artifacts.html closed with the following statement:  

"The lesson to be learned is: don't trust digital or video images, unless you know all the ways they can go wrong."