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I'm also a happy Mint user. I started on Linux perhaps 16-18 years ago with Ubuntu but switched to Mint when Ubuntu switched to the Unity Desktop. I've experiment with a couple of other distros but Mint is the best daily drive. When I started Linux was still a bit rough but these days it's slick, smooth and very stable. The recent advent of Flatpaks has created 'bloat' but had the desired effect of stimulating development. The 'bloat' should be seen in context. My OS and software (heaps of it) totals 30GB, which is about the same as a base install of Win 10 (don't know about Win 11 but I image it's scary). I tend to leave browser windows open, apps running etc yet 8GB of ram is enough, it rarely uses the swap space.
For astronomy you have kstars, Cartes du Ciel and Stellarium for planetarium/star charts and Siril and Astap for processing. The ASI suite installs easily but I haven't tried using the software.
For office suites there is also OnlyOffice with its MS style ribbon interface, if that's your thing. It claims to be a drop-in replacement for Office (just a different shade of blue). It's very good but I can't verify that it is perfect. Personally I use LibreOffice.
I use Chromium web browser and the Dolphin file browser, but Thunar is also fine.
Have you found the 'hidden' files in your home folder? These are worth also backing up as having copies will allow you to restore all system and app configurations, or even transfer them to another machine. Also, if you use Thunderbird (or similar) your local folders will be stored in /home/<user>/.thunderbird, so it's really worth backing up. You can learn to use rsync from the command line or FreeFileSync if you want a GUI.
Enjoy.
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