Hi.
After being in this hobby and wasted so much money on stuff that kinda works but not really, I've taken on the moto "Buy once, buy well".
I have have just about every astro software out there and there are three or four I'd recommend.
They are.
The Sky X with camera add on
It's a planatarium software that will control your mount, and with the camera addon, control you camera, filter wheels focuses and just about everything else. Best of all is that it will plate solve your images to tell you precisely where you scope is pointed, not where your mount thinks it's pointed. It's software that you will grow into not out of.
If you don't want want to shell out for the camera add on and have a DSLR I'd recommend Backyard EOS, it's really good and quite cheap.
Pixinsight, for stacking and processing.
Align master for polar alignment.
Maybe one more, Pem pro for periodic error correction.
If you have all of the above you'll be laughing. ...Well maybe you'll be pulling your hair out while your laughing hysterically, and cursing the day you ever thought that this hobby was a good idea. But then.... you will glance down at your screen one day at your very own own astrophotograph made from photons that have travelled for hundreds of millions of light years and that you captured and painstakingly put together with the knowledge that you have accumulated over hundreds of hours of trial and error. You'll call out out to your wife or partner or whom ever you hold dear and say "Behold, look what I have created" like a cave man who invented fire you'll beat your chest and and wait for the recognition you so richly deserve. She'll look at you and see the giddiness in you eyes, and say "It looks a little blurry, is it supposed to be like that". That's when the real bug bites....
