Yeah, it's close to the light novel, but the events take place in a different time period from the events in the novel timeline. The author's statement regarding Chichigami does appear in the anime timeline, but it doesn't say anything about it not being a different timeline. So, it doesn't change anything because it only explains the events in the anime timeline.
We know the anime hasn't confirmed the appearance of Chichigami (aside from the author's statement). We also know they find out about Chichigami during the Loki fight, but in the anime, it doesn't take place in that time period (as far as we see). The author only claims that Chichigami did appear in the anime timeline.
The EX timeline takes place before the rating game between Rias and Sairaorg Bael. We know EX mentions a timeline where Chichigami doesn't appear, and they don't find out about parallel dimensions.
Also, EX isn't the one seeing the events of different timelines, but someone else. They say they didn't come into contact with Chichigami and didn't find out about parallel dimensions.
We know they find out about Chichigami during the Loki fight, but in the anime, it doesn't take place in that time period (as far as we see). We don't know about the timeline EX talked about, so we assume it refers to the anime timeline because it's the only timeline where Issei didn't come into contact with Chichigami during Loki fight. And author confirm did appear but when not confirmed.
We also don't know how much time has passed in that timeline or how many events that person saw in different timelines.
So, it's possible that Chichigami did appear between Born and Hero.
This thread only uses a single statement regarding the anime timeline that only explains the events of the anime timeline, so it doesn't change the fact that the anime is a different timeline EX talked about.
And be have other statement regarding anime like saying some of the character is stronger than their light novel counter part
(read in the timeline blog for scan)
So I going to say for now
Anime is the only timeline we know that should be timeline ex talked about
Possibly loki's do exist in anime since when issei reach CxC they talk about some curse, I don't know which curse they talked about
Yeah I also think that the battle in Dimensional Gap is non canon I also talked about this with @masque but he kindly disagree
Since you don't answer the heaven star's thing I want to add to that question
https://ibb.co/PsS6j1JW
https://ibb.co/whgsNcwR
The translator himself don't know whether stars are Universe stars or heaven is the cloud City that exist in the atmosphere of the planet Earth
But we know heaven was a different dimension (space-time) which was currently accepted in this wiki two time.
so the stars in second heaven should be stars of the second heaven
The person who created this thread say they projection of the star's which is entirely fiction self created since they doesn't have any statement regarding this like the stars in second heaven was fake Or they have any think that project star in the second heaven from different dimension or anything else like they have any tool that project stars in current dxd.
Asgard sun
There is no statement regarding the sun of Asgard, whether it's fake or real. The only statements are that there is a sun in Asgard and that an evil dragon creates a solar eclipse, stopping light from reaching Asgard.
So it's not a good thing you just say that it's not a real sun when it's wasn't confirmed or there is any statement regarding this.