Even the insulation of expensive cables gets very brittle at those temperatures. I was out two nights ago and the temperature was -4F.
Plugging your mount into a different port will change the COM port in Windows and you’ll have to adjust.
One: always connect to the same USB port on the PC to avoid having to change configurations. Connecting cables feels pretty straight forward, with two quick hits. I’ have everything strapped to the mount and really only plug in power and the USB to the PC.
It won’t be so trivial when your scope crashes into a tripod leg. Mount the counterweight(s) first to keep the balance below the center of gravity. This one seems very trivial, and it is, until you mount your scope without the counterweight on and you forgot to tighten your RA clutch. The exception to this is if you’re just using the mount’s tracking rather than active guiding with a guide camera. The fine tuning is handled during the Polar Drift Alignment in PHD2, and time is better spent on the Drift Alignment that with the polar scope. I’m not any more precise that throwing Polaris near the middle. Unless your mount is stationary on a pier, moving it in and out of the house will cause the polar scope to lose collimation. This is actually not essential (within reason), but will make polar alignment adjustments easier. you’ll be too far off using Magnetic North. If it’s still light out, or your view of Polaris is obscured, use a phone or tablet compass app that has a True North option and set your altitude to your location. The object isn’t to be perfectly aligned yet, but to be within a couple degrees. This is easy enough if Polaris is right there for you.
I don’t need checklist every time I go out anymore, but creating something similar yourself will definitely save you some time when your just getting going. I found myself missing steps, and having to go backwards time and again. I found this helpful to create when I was starting out.