It’s a very good test Paul, I did something similar not long ago with NGC 253, testing galaxy imaging under Bortle 7-8 skies.
My theory was that brighter objects aren’t quite as important for dark skies, whether it be bright nebula or bright galaxies. After that it largely comes down to seeing for the amount of detail that you can pick up. Your stars look great but there may be a bit too much noise reduction showing in the galaxy itself; it might be blurring some of the details but then again, not so great seeing destroys that too!
All in all, a great shot Paul
