What do lights look like with astigmatism?

It depends on whether your vision problem ("refractive error" in eye doctor jargon) is purely astigmatism or if there is myopia (nearsightedness) as well. If you have pretty close to pure astigmatism, you would see a point of light (like a star or car headlight like the 2 images on each side of the center, "normal" light:

Notice that the "stretch" or distortion of the point of light can be in any direction - the left one is astigmatism @ 90˚ and the one on the right is @180˚. But it could be at any axis, e.g. 45˚ or 135˚. The effect on letters in print might be like this:

_Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. - Chief of Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic