First light with my Mewlon 180C was to split Rigel and observe Jupiter. The former was so easy, the latter so gorgeous, even though the seeing was only a bit above average in Bortle 6 (I did take the time to allow the scope to cool down though). More recently, I was able to use it to look at the moon, and the views up close had such detail that they were a delight. I did not notice mirror shift when finding focus during any of my observing sessions.

Both the telescope and finder scope arrived collimated. The finder scope was a joy to use, both as a finder scope and as the handle. I did not expect the OTA to feel so light, but that appears to be because the centre of mass is under the finder scope/handle, making it easier to carry than lighter OTAs. My two irritations with the finder scope is that the front cap is too easy to dislodge when using it as a handle, and that I wish it would have a right-angle adapter (I bought a third party one but it doesn't do the finder scope justice). Nonetheless these are easily forgotten when I start using the finder scope and the scope itself.

The stock dovetail plate is beautiful and has the correct chamfer angle for clamping by my Skywatcher dual saddle's Vixen-style dovetail clamp. However, it is slightly small such that the clamping, while adequate, could have had more contact area. I eventually replaced it with an Askar 150mm Vixen-style dovetail plate, but this replacement was not straightforward as the Askar dovetail plate is designed for M6 screws, whereas the Mewlon 180C uses M5 screws for attaching the dovetail plate. I had to source for M5 socket shoulder screws with 6mm shoulder diameter of 4mm length, with 6mm thread length. An excellent result once done, and I even was able to add safety stop bolts (the ones on the stock dovetail plate did not actually provide any safety when used with the Skywatcher Vixen-style dovetail clamp).