So I pulled out my son's Celestron AstroMaster for our first good cold weather stargazing session... and I heard something rattling around inside. Something big. I pulled off the cap, and it was the main mirror. I took it apart and the attached photo is what we've got.
No idea how this happened while it was just sitting in the pantry, but since that room isn't conditioned, maybe the hot/cold cycle did it? Looks like the pot metal the mirror base plate is mounted to just snapped. Considering the general quality of the telescope, I was thinking of calling it dead and getting an Orion XT8 Plus, but that's not really the point of this post. Is this something I can glue, or will it forever affect the quality of the optics? If it just re-snaps every time I try to tighten down the mirror, there's not much point in it.