IC434 Horse head

I don't know whether to be happy or cry—I liked the stars so much myself, and I stretched them just the way I wanted.

So what? Everyone shoots how they want and what they like, especially if there's no chance to go out, for example. It's actually quite impressive for Bortle 9.

I'm not judging. I'm with sympathy ) Don't be offended.

Looking at your photos, both versions of 434 have stars that are a) overexposed, and b) clearly have shifted color balance.

This is one of my first photos.

Okay, so how did you determine that they are overexposed in my image? Could it be JPEG compression artifacts?

If it's not overexposure, then it's errors in histogram transformation. This is definitely not JPEG artifacts. On any refractor, stars have a characteristic brightness profile. With proper exposure, brightness decreases from the center to the edge. In your case, the entire star area has uniform brightness. It results in a round blob with a halo. The SQA series is top-tier from Askar. This instrument performs well. You are taking criticism defensively. I wrote this so you would pay attention, not to offend you.

Well, you could have written that right away—I might be a beginner too.

I wrote exactly that - "The stars are overexposed. You need to reduce the exposure time."