Hi SAW. Think we may have the same Mak I’ve put mine away for now as the planets are too low down but I used to get some similar results.
Apologies if I’m teaching you to suck eggs but that image looks like the “before” stacked image before you tweak the wavelets in Registax.
I’d process in registax only, use about 80% of the frames then adjust the top 2 wavelets the most and the remainder by only small tweaks. Don’t overprocess
As for barlows I’ve tried em all (x2 apo, x2.5 powermate, x5 powermate) .
The only one that gave me the best results was the x2 apo. Even the 2.5 drowned out the detail.
Altitude is going to be a huge factor. Like I said I packed my Mak away and bought a refractor. Maybe not sell it because it will come into its own in a couple of years when Jupiter and Mars return (Saturn’s going to take years for us int North).
Cheers
Jarvo