Add to the list of good advive you received the possibility that your
electrical source for driving the LX200 may not be consistent. I had the same
"football" shape problems with my CCD images as well. I noticed while
looking through my 9mm EP [277x] that the tracking was retarding in a
"cyclic" fashion. I noticed that the Kendrick heater control box was feeding
power to the 3 heater straps in timed intervals at the same moment I noticed
the tracking was retarding. When the Kendrick heater control box cut the
power to the straps in its "rest" portion of the cycle, the tracking speed
picked back up.

I could only surmise that the heaters were drawing so much current when
attached to the same power source as the telescope so as to cause a power
drain to the telescope tracking, which would certainly cause "footballs"
while taking CCD exposures at the same time.

Having a spare batter power source I proceded to separate the Kendrick
heaters off the telescope 12v battery onto its own independent 12v power
source battery. The "footballs" went away !!

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