First off welcome to the forums and welcome to BP ownership!
Couple of things to unpack from your post right off. Your probe placement for your UTH is incorrect and dangerous. Below is a link to a thread that will show you how your probe and UTH need to be set up.
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...cement-for-UTH
We do this for a couple of reasons, your snake could move your probe or pee or get some other moisture on it that causes it to malfunction, then you have a UTH running wide open. The way you're currently set up makes the risk of burns pretty high. The second issue with your probe is you say you have it taped in there. You absolutely should not have any tape anywhere inside your enclosure. If the snake gets it stuck on them it can cause some serious injuries. My suggestion right off is to look at the linked thread, and make these corrections right away before you worry about anything else.
Moving on to your heating questions, you're right you don't want anything in your enclosure surface temperature wise to be over I'd say low 90s. Especially if the temperature stays there consistently. The air temperature on the other hand is obviously going to be higher the closer you get to the lamp. While excessive heat can cause neurological issues, it sounds to me like you're just measuring directly below the light, which of course is going to be much hotter than where your BP is actually hanging out at. I don't want to tell you that this isn't something you need to pay attention to, but you may be worrying needlessly about that. You can, however, pick up a lamp stand that essentially raises the lamp higher off the mesh, and you can reduce your temperatures that way. I prefer to keep my hot side in the mid 80s, but you have to find what works for you and your animal.
You've got a pretty big fluctuation in your cool side temperatures, but on the level of importance I would say fixing that UTH setup is the number 1 concern you should have. Take care of that, and then we can dial everything else in. I understand it might be a tad aggravating having to pull all that stuff out and redo it, but it's not worth the risk to leave it as is.
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