A rough but helpful way to look at photons is that they act like waves while traveling and act like particles when interacting with matter. In the context of starlight, the light travels through space for millions of years acting like a wave, and then acts like a collection of particles when hitting the photon detector, the telescope, or an eye. Each photon therefore collapses from mostly wave-like to mostly particle-like upon being detected. Since the photons act mostly like waves while traveling, there are no gaps that develop between them while traveling. And since the photons act mostly like particles when being detected, therearegaps in the time when the photons are detected and in the locations where they are detected. The act of detecting the light causes it to collapse from wave-like to particle-like, and therefore introduces the gaps. A very dim light beam from a distant star has a very weak wave magnitude, which leads to large gaps in photon reception. As light from a star spreads out and weakens, do gaps form between the photons?