In the middle of last night’s session, I lost control of the telescope mount. The hand controller kept displaying “No link to mount stand alone mode.” So, I brought my telescope indoors and consulted Google. While Google did not produce the exact answer, it did point me in the correct direction.
My best guess is that the batteries had enough charge to power the controller, but not the motor. Fortunately, I had an AC-to-DC Adapter. When I plugged the adapter to the mount, the controller was fully functional again.
So, I removed all eight AA batteries and tested each one. All were good except for one, which was 100% dead. Could not even budge the needle. So, that problem was fixed, but not without some pointless diagnostics involved where I plugged and unplugged the controller multiple times to see if it would reset on its own. A simple low battery warning could have saved me a lot of time instead of the “No link to mount” error message which suggested some problem with the connection between the hand controller and the mount.
Nikon D800, ISO 2500, 1/1,250s, Orion StarSeeker III 127mm GoTo Mak-Cass Telescope