How dare you out me like that!

That's for undergraduate Astronomy *majors*--they are getting jobs, but not as Astronomers. Of course, most Art History majors don't go on to be Art Historians either--but many of us would hope that a degree in astronomy would be more like a degree in engineering than a humanities degree.

Yes, if only there were a google-map-like app that had SDSS data in it. I know, they could call it google sky! Oh wait, they did. Personally I prefer wikisky.org.
Step 1. Put survey data on web with a nice interface
Step 2. ?????
Step 3. PROFIT!

"So Jamie, there's a myth in a Russian newspaper that says you can plug an oil well with a nuclear bomb"

"We've got that pile of U235 left over from the radiation myth episode, let's skip the mock-up and go straight to full-scale."

How many of those can you do at once?

Astronomers hate putting lenses into their optical systems--there is always some light lost to reflection off the glass surface. The VLT is an 8 meter diameter telescope, so supporting a giant lens above the telescope would be a major engineering issue. This isn't really a problem you can solve by adding a new lens or tweaking the secondary support structure--it's a fundamental feature caused by the wave nature of light. Anytime light passes through an aperture, it creates a diffraction pattern.

Um, no. The spikes are caused by the diffraction of light around the struts supporting the secondary mirror in the telescope. The wave nature of light ensures that no matter how large you build your telescope, you cannot focues stars to a perfect point.