My new telescope mount died during my first Mercury transit

Last month I set up my rig at 5 AM for the Mercury transit, and the mount froze solid after 20 minutes, right when the dot crossed the sun's edge. Had to shoot handheld through my phone on a tripod, got 3 blurry frames, but honestly the adrenaline made it memorable. Has anyone else lost a shoot to gear failure and still kept the images anyway?

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umac711mo ago

Did the mount at least wait until the dot was halfway across before it gave up... or did it just pick the most dramatic moment possible? Mines died right as Jupiter cleared the treeline once, and I stared at that blurry orange blob like it was a masterpiece from the Hubble. Honestly, half the fun is telling the story about how the gear failed, not what you actually captured.