Suggestions please for best budget software to connect my mixed bag of Hardware

No. Basically my visible horizon starts 20 degrees above the actual horizon and so I cannot see a star unless it has over 20 degrees altitude.

I could see Polaris if I was physically able to reach the eyepiece but it is too low for me to stoop because of my disability.

I tried to use a mirror but found that too difficult

bigCatAstro · Jan 7, 2026, 04:14 PM

Richard Jones · Jan 7, 2026 at 02:15 PM

No. Basically my visible horizon starts 20 degrees above the actual horizon and so I cannot see a star unless it has over 20 degrees altitude.

Alright, thank you for clarifying. So, there are several options for your situation and I’ll try to answer your a-c questions with them.

A) With an image capturing and mount controlling software like NINA or KStars/EKOS (more on these later), you no longer need to use the built-in polar finder. Instead, just rough/daytime polar align your mount. The strain wave mount I use doesn’t have a polar finder at all, so I use the app PS Align Pro in daytime mode to get close. You can use a properly declination-calibrated compass or even your phone’s compass to do this step as well.

B) For imaging and mount controlling software, you’ll probably get a number of answers—both regarding hardware and software.

Are you thinking about using your Mac for image capture/mount control? I don’t have experience withMacOS for this function, so I’ll leave it there, but I have used Macs for image processing and they are great.

If you already have a RPi, you could either install KStars and EKOS manually or you can get it all packaged together with the StellarMate platform. Currently, StellarMate for RPi is $59 USD. Personally, I would pay the fee in order to have a packaged and fully functional installation of KStars/EKOS, but that’s my preference. There’s also Astroberry which is free and packages KStars and EKOS. There’s a small community here that uses it and might be able to help you.

Finally, I use NINA on a Windows 11 Pro mini pc (MeLe Quieter series). NINA is free, but the cost here will be getting either a mini pc or a Windows laptop since NINA is only Windows compatible.

There are more options, but they do get more expensive, so I won’t list them.

C) The image capturing/mount controlling software should have a Polar Alignment routine built in and will use your main imaging camera to align with. NINA and softwares using EKOS can polar alignment to any star and don’t need Polaris to do so (Polaris is obstructed from my view by trees, so I know it works). It will pick-up more than enough stars, I also image in B8 conditions and it is excellent.

Thank you for your suggestions. I will definitely use the Macbook for image capture and processing because I am more familiar with that. For guiding and alignment I will probably get a RPi as feeding all the cables to the laptop would be too physically cumbersome. Thank you very much for your help.

Cole Fenger · Jan 8, 2026, 04:25 PM

KStars/Ekos is Mac compatible so I would start there as a free piece of software that would be your full control suite. This would have your polar alignment tool (so no need to use the polar scope on the GTi). Use PHD2 for guiding which is Mac compatible and that will connect to Ekos for guiding. Ekos will connect directly to your main imaging camera for imaging/sequencing control.

In my opinion, KStars/Ekos is a little harder to learn than NINA, it’s also just less popular so there is less content out there to learn from, but it has a lot of the same features and it is Mac compatible whereas NINA isn’t. Spend some time watching tutorials, reading documentation and working with the software while you have everything connected during the daytime in the comfort of your home to ensure that everything is connected and you are familiar with the controls before you take everything outside in the dark.

One area of concern I would have would be the age of your MacBook and the OS: According to the release notes- the latest supported release for KStars/Ekos is 10.15. You are running 10.13. A Late 2014 MacBook Pro Should support up to MacOS 11 BigSur (released in 2020). If you can update to that - it should solve a lot of potential compatibility issues with both KStars and other software. However, you are capped at that version and Intel Macs are quickly going out of support so I would’t expect too much more life out of that machine. (keep in mind it is 11 years old) If you are willing to make the switch to Windows eventually - that would be much more cost effective than upgrading to a new Mac when the time does come that support gets completely dropped.

EDIT: Saw your reply that you are going with an RPi - I think that’s a great option to run KStars and Ekos as well!

Thank you for that very practical advice. I shall try the Kstars/Ekos on my current Macbook and see what happens. I think I may have to upgrade my laptop as there are increasing difficulties with all my software over time.

Here to also recommend NINA. It’s windows only, but as Andrea suggested you could run BootCamp on your Macbook (if it’s an Intel macbook — pre-Apple Silicon). Or you could get a cheap windows mini PC… can often find a used MeLE Q3 for like $150 or so.

Actually @Richard Jones I have an old Beelink SER windows mini PC that you can just have for free if you’re willing to pay shipping. I’m in the US. It’s not a blazing fast computer but it’s certainly capable of running NINA. It’s just collecting dust at the moment. Send me a DM if you’re interested.

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that NINA has a plugin called “Three Point Polar Alignment” that allows you to polar align without needing to see Polaris and without the uncomfortable ergonomics of using a polar scope. My girlfriend (who has terrible back issues and has had a few spine segments fused) can polar align using TPPA without any pain, whereas she is straight up unable to use a traditional polar scope.

One other advantage of NINA: It lets you build a custom horizon so you can have your scope start/stop imaging or switch targets based on when your targets get near the horizon.

Noah Tingey · Jan 8, 2026, 07:25 PM

Here to also recommend NINA. It’s windows only, but as Andrea suggested you could run BootCamp on your Macbook (if it’s an Intel macbook — pre-Apple Silicon). Or you could get a cheap windows mini PC… can often find a used MeLE Q3 for like $150 or so.

Actually @Richard Jones I have an old Beelink SER windows mini PC that you can just have for free if you’re willing to pay shipping. I’m in the US. It’s not a blazing fast computer but it’s certainly capable of running NINA. It’s just collecting dust at the moment. Send me a DM if you’re interested.

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that NINA has a plugin called “Three Point Polar Alignment” that allows you to polar align without needing to see Polaris and without the uncomfortable ergonomics of using a polar scope. My girlfriend (who has terrible back issues and has had a few spine segments fused) can polar align using TPPA without any pain, whereas she is straight up unable to use a traditional polar scope.

One other advantage of NINA: It lets you build a custom horizon so you can have your scope start/stop imaging or switch targets based on when your targets get near the horizon.

After doing some research on all the options, I have decided to try the following.

1) Update the OS on my Macbook to OSX11 Big Sur, to make it compatible with faster software.

2) Put Kstars/EKOS on the Macbook as a prototype trial.

3) Use a Raspberry Pi 5.0 running Astroarch with Kstars/EKOS to control the mounting and the fast processing power needed for the image capture.

4) Process the captured data on the Macbook

I would like to thank everyone for their very helpful suggestions, as I was a bit lost beforehand. Also thanks for the very kind offer of some hardware. As a newbie I am very impressed by this site.