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Thanks Martin! I was hoping for an easier galaxy, but couldn't find one on Stellarium. My back garden has mostly an Eastern and Northern view. South and most of the West have obstructions.
I started imaging at 10:30 pm and finished around 3:30 am. So I guess I had the moon for a couple of hours.
For the first time my mount successfully performed an automatic meridian flip which was great to watch.
I will take new flats each imaging session. I learnt this the hard way today.
As for the elongated stars, I am also confused. There were serious issues with my polar alignment and I am not sure what was happening. NINA was telling me that I was perfectly polar aligned one moment, but 15 minutes later, it was telling my I was a degree off in both RA and Dec. Not sure how I can be polar aligned one moment, then off the next. I made sure everything was tight, couldn't find any issues. I re-polar aligned, and same thing happened. So I did it a third time, and hoped for the best. Tilt is also a possibility as I did take the camera off to remove the L-Extreme filter and perhaps repositioned it with not enough care. I also tightened the focuser lock screws which I don't usually do. Any thoughts??
Also, I am a little worried about my Dec gears. The mount is making a slight grinding noise as it rotates. RA gears do not make this noise, just the high pitch "normal" noise. Any thoughts there? I haven't ever opened the mount up, and don't really feel confident doing so...
Thanks again for all the encouragement.
Clear skies,
Stéphane
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