u/g3etwqb-uh8yaw07k

Usually don't do photos, but about a month ago, I had really good seeing for where I live and tried my luck. I didn't have high hopes, but a few of the pictures turned out pretty well for single frame snapshots without a holder, although the telescope certainly did more for the quality than my phone's camera.

These two pictures didn't quite get the full illuminated area, but they're the sharpest and for some reason have way less false colour than the others (probably something with the phone).

Telescope: Vixen SD81S-II with Vixen SLV 9mm eyepiece, added a Baader 2.25x Barlow for the second picture.

Phone: Xiaomi Mi-9t, standard camera with 1/30s exposure and manual brightness adjustments, everything else on auto iirc.

Hi folks, I need some hive mind help on how to go about fixing this thing. A few days ago, I bought an old 2" Diagonal. It has a single clamp screw that was so stuck I had to drill it out, but I think it was worth fixing since I'm 90% sure it's a genuine (albeit old) TV mirror, or at least from another smaller premium brand. Excellent mirror (a good bit brighter than my William Optics dielectric 2" and looked about as sharp during a quick daytime test) and the housing is of the exact construction as current 2" TV Everbrite models, with the main part being a single machined metal piece and the mirror clamped to it from the bottom.

I drilled out the stuck screw carefully enough to mostly keep the (probably M4x1mm) thread intact and removed the damaged edges with a Dremel, but it's pretty worn out now and looks a bit too DIY for my taste. Do you think I could get a better result by getting thread cutters and upsizing to M5 or M6 with 0.75mm or 1mm threads?

(I don't think I would need particularly expensive ones. Guessing from weight and how easy it was to grind away the burs, the housing is made out of a relatively soft aluminium alloy.)

My current plan for either solution is to use a small hex/torx screw to keep a 1.25" adapter in place at first and to upgrade to a plastic tipped thumb screw if I get some high end 2" eyepieces in the future.

Any advice on what the better solution would be and/or how to go about this would be greatly appreciated. I feel like I'm relatively good at this, but I almost never get around to do diy projects or work with metal, so I'm not really experienced.

Thanks in advance and clear skies!