Is this the best non-radio image of whatever's at the center of M87? How was it taken?
Your top image is this from Dr Jean Lorre stock science images.  Just a photo showing stars and the optical jet with a 22 MB CCD camera through a small telescope.  It is unfortunate that he chose a false color brightness scale with black at the top intensity.  But, that black region does not correspond to the true blackness in the interferometric image which has resolution 100,000 times higher.

For comparison, here's a False-col. optical image of spiral galaxy NGC 1097 by the same "artist", also with the dark center where the visible light intensity is actually a maximum.