It all started with a broken hand controller... On my 10 year old Atlas mount, I have torn apart the hand controller several times in recent years, cleaned the contacts, etc. That has helped significantly in the past, but didn't help this summer. So, I priced a new controller. To me they seem over priced.
I ended up getting a cheap computer for not much more. Next, I watched an unbelievable amount of Youtubes necessary for me learn to load different software and drivers and get the whole operation going. This all was extremely frustrating for non-techy me, but in the end it has been enormously rewarding. In the beginning I just wanted the computer to take the place of the hand controller, but I soon got intrigued by the idea of returning to guiding my mount for astrophotography. I last attempted to autoguide in June of 2015! Anyhow, seeing as I was now going to have a computer in the observatory, why not  try autoguiding again. Of course, easier said than done. So, I dusted off my old guide camera and scope, and have started to relearn autoguiding  after all these years. I think I drifted away from autoguiding back then because I found it difficult and having to use a computer with all the wires, etc seemed like so much bother for the little improvement it seemed to make in my deep sky photography. Anyway, here I go again, and here's my first autoguided image resulting from my recent efforts.
I do want to thank the many Youtube presenters along with the astronomy software developers. How the developers can produce such powerful and user-friendly astro applications is a mystery to me. I can't thank the amateur astronomy community enough!
This image was taken with my trusty old Canon 60Da, my Explore Scientific 102 ED, 69X 180 sec  Light frames, 57 Darks, 42 Flats and 21 Bias frames. Stacked in ASTAP, Processed in StarTools 8, along with Topoaz Photo AI and Luminar Neo. I also used N.I.N.A., Stellarium, ASCOM, and PHD2.
Clear Skies!