Aperture

• Officials of Aperture Hotels, a leading hospitality management provider specializing in premium lifestyle, compact full-service, select-service and extended stay hotels, today announced the company added 12 hotels to its portfolio over the past 12 months.
• Located from Florida to California, the 12 new properties are comprised of Hilton-, Marriott- and IHG-branded hotels, as well as some independent flags.
• “We have enjoyed strong, steady growth over the past 12 months and plan to continue this trajectory moving forward,” said Charles Oswald, president and CEO, Aperture Hotels.
• To accommodate its growth and drive operational execution, Aperture added multiple corporate executives over the past year.

• While the unaided eye or binoculars can reveal much of the night sky, a telescope reveals so much more.
• Seeing Saturn’s rings or the Moon’s craters with your own eyes can be an “oh wow” moment.
• Telescopes also come in a range of sizes, with a trade-off between light-gathering power, portability and price.

How big should the aperture be?

Aperture is fundamental for telescopes. The bigger the light-collecting lens or mirror, the fainter the objects you can see. Double the aperture from 50mm diameter to 100mm diameter, and the light-collecting area quadruples.

• Again, bigger is better – a larger aperture telescope will produce sharper images than a smaller aperture telescope of comparable design.
• Earth’s turbulent atmosphere also blurs images, which can limit the detail seen when the aperture is more than 150mm.

Refractor or reflector?

• Refracting telescopes Refracting telescopes can be good for viewing objects on Earth and in the sky.
• While 70mm aperture refracting telescopes can be quite affordable, bigger refractor telescopes are often more expensive than comparable reflecting telescopes.
• Reflecting telescopes Reflecting telescopes use mirrors to focus light.

How do I find things in the sky? Depends on the mount

• To do this, a telescope needs a mount, which is often sold with the telescope but can also be bought separately.
• Equatorial mounts have an axis aligned with Earth’s axis, so a single motor can compensate for Earth’s rotation.

• With the advent of cheap computing, they can now be used to automatically point at and track celestial objects.
• A completely manual telescope will be cheaper than a telescope with automation, but you will need to navigate the sky yourself.

Do I need a finder scope?

• A finder scope with a wider view and crosshairs simplifies things.
• Even telescopes with goto electronics often need to be calibrated with bright stars and locating them is easier with a finder scope.

What about the eyepiece?

• Sometimes decent telescopes are sold with quite cheap eyepieces, but it can be relatively inexpensive to upgrade to a better one.
• More complex eyepieces that provide better views are also available, and far cheaper than they once were.

What if I want to take astro photos?

Taking basic astronomical photos has become much easier with smartphones. While you can hold a phone to the telescope eyepiece for a photo of the Moon or a planet, you will get better results with an adapter that holds your phone securely in place.

• For long exposures, automatic tracking of celestial objects is essential, and that adds to a telescope’s price.
• However, you do lose the experience of seeing the universe directly with your own eyes through the eyepiece.

Try before you buy!

• There should be plenty of telescopes, and owners happy to wax lyrical about them.
• A specialist shop can also give a direct experience of a telescope: its size and how it works (with limitations during daytime).
• For example, you may find a telescope is too bulky or technical for your needs.

Michael J. I. Brown receives research funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University.

• Aperture Investors , an alternative asset manager and part of the Generali Investments ecosystem, announces industry veteran Rob MacNaughton has joined the firm as the newest member of its growing credit team.
• MacNaughton is an Associate Portfolio Manager who will head up Aperture’s New York-based credit team and support the firm’s global fixed-income strategies.
• MacNaughton brings 23+ years of experience in high-yield and distressed debt to this newly created role at Aperture.
• Most recently, MacNaughton was Head of US Leveraged Finance Trading at UBS, where he previously also held the role Head of US High Yield and Distressed Trading.

• The partnership was announced today at the 2023 Annual Conference on Advancing School Mental Health in New Orleans.
• Together, eLuma and Aperture will offer schools a more affordable and scalable multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) for mental health and social-emotional competence.
• "Schools have unrealized needs to fulfill tiered mental health support, and evaluating students' needs is not a straightforward process," said Jeremy Glauser, founder and CEO of eLuma.
• eLuma's partnership with Aperture gives schools the tools to develop comprehensive, school-based mental health systems and practices.