There are a couple of fairly minor issues with the current 4.40 driver which I will address but otherwise the changes should go largely unnoticed as I am focussing more on making the backend code more resilient to connection issues caused by dissimilarities between the ASCOM standard and the communication protocol used by Vixen.

The most obvious change is that it will be called ASCOM Star Book driver rather than ASCOM Sphinx driver as it was always a driver for the Star Book hardware rather than the mount itself. I believe it should work with the Star Book provided with the SX and SXD mounts as well as the Star Book type S.

No ETA at present but I thought you might like to know something is happening!

A donation is not required for you to use my software but it will make me and you feel good to see some recognition for the hundreds of hours I have put into developing this software with no acknowledgement from Vixen! Download ASCOM Star Book Driver

As I come from a land down under, here are some options depending on where you are in the world:

Anywhere	In Australia
	Contact me for details

The Sphinx GOTO mount from Vixen Japan has a number of highly innovative features that make it a one of a kind at present.

One particularly tantalising feature is the ability to communicate with the Sphinx via a network interface. Unfortunately Vixen Japan have shown no interest in providing English software to utilise this interface.

As I do not speak or read Japanese and in the interest of being able to control the Sphinx myself, I have developed an ASCOM driver for the Sphinx to allow it to be managed from any ASCOM compliant program.

This driver has been developed with little or no support from Vixen Japan and to date they have not officially recognised its existence. It has been entirely a labour of love (and some pain!) for myself and I decided early on to make it freely available to the Sphinx community – I hope you like it!

Chronology

2004-08-17 The first release of my ASCOM Sphinx driver that allows current pointing position of Sphinx to be displayed in ASCOM compliant planetarium software.

2004-09-30 Vixen announced in their Japanese 1.2 build 24 update that the firmware would allow control of the Sphinx via the Japanese language only planetarium software StellaNavigator from AstroArts. Vixen state they have no plans to provide support via an English language product.

2004-10-10 The first version of my ASCOM Sphinx driver that allows ASCOM compliant planetarium software to control the Sphinx pointing position.

Note that ASCOM is a Microsoft Windows only solution at present so this will not be usable by MacOS or Linux users – sorry about that.

Installation

Status: Release
Download 4.40

• You need to have Star Book firmware 1.2 build 26 or later.
• You need to have ASCOM platform 4.1 or later installed.
• Download the latest ASCOM Sphinx driver by clicking the link above.
• Run the installer and fire up your favourite Planetarium or other telescope controlling software.

Use

In order to control the Sphinx from your computer you will require ASCOM compatible client software. Cartes du Ciel and Starry Night Pro 5.* are a couple of planetarium applications along with more specialised software such as GuideDog. You can find a full list of ASCOM compatible clients at the ASCOM web site.?

To get started you can use POTH (short for plain old telescope hub) which is provided with the ASCOM installation. You can find this in your Start Menu under ASCOM Platform/Scope-Dome Hubs.

The first time you fire up POTH you will need to choose a telescope driver. You can do this by clicking the Setup button which opens the POTH Setup dialogue (not shown). In the top right corner of the setup dialogue you will see a button titled Choose Scope. Clicking this should display the ASCOM Telescope Chooser dialogue.

If the ASCOM Platform menu or POTH is missing then ASCOM is not correctly installed.

?Select Sphinx from the pulldown list. If Sphinx is not listed then the Sphinx ASCOM driver is not correctly installed.

Assuming Sphinx is available, before clicking OK, click the Properties button to display the Setup dialogue for the Sphinx driver itself.

When the Vixen Sphinx Driver Setup dialogue is first displayed it will have a default IP address displayed and the status will be Unknown with many of the fields shaded grey.

It is almost certain that the default IP address will be incorrect and you will need to change this to match the IP address displayed in the Star Book. You can find this by pressing the Menu button on the Star Book then scrolling ?down to the About STAR BOOK entry in the System Menu. Change the IP address in the Setup dialogue to match that of the Star Book and press the Check button. This will attempt to connect to the Sphinx and retrieve information such as longitude and latitude as well as the firmware version installed on the Star Book.

If your firmware is older than the minimum version support by the Sphinx driver, a message will be displayed and you will need to update the firmware.

Assuming the IP address is correct and a network connection can be establised to the Sphinx, the status should change to Okay and many of the fields will be shaded bright green. Don’t worry about the other settings for now and press Okay.

You should now be back at the POTH Setup so click OK again to return to the main POTH window. Click Connect Scope and the fields at the top of the window showing the position of the telescope should now be updated.

Change the pulldown list from 30° to 5&ddeg; and click one of the compass directions. The telescope should now perform a short slew in the specified direction. If this works as expected then the Sphinx driver is properly configured.

Configuring the Sphinx in other applications is done in a similar manner and if you followed the POTH setup above, ASCOM should already be configured to use the Sphinx driver and it will most likely be a simple matter or telling the client software to use ASCOM. Support for specific clients is outside of the scope of what I support and you should join the ASCOM or Sphinx discussions on YahooGroups for assistance.

If you have have made a donation as thanks for my efforts in providing this driver, you can send me an email directly and I’ll do my best to assist.

History

4.4.0

2006-03-01

Fix: Enhance polling check for position and time to avoid possible rentrancy.

Update: Remove some optional ASCOM settings including Aperture, Diameter, FocalLength and SiteElevation that were only implemented in the driver itself and had no affect on mount operation.

4.3.2

2005-09-04

Fix: Change implementation of CanMoveAxis to remove incompatibility issue with Starry Night Pro.

4.3.1

2005-08-29

Fix: Decimal minutes in RA were not correctly converted in non English versions of Microsoft Windows resulting in a rounding error.

4.3.0

2005-08-25

Update: Remove support for AltAz methods as these are not directly supported by the hardware and are redundant.

Fix: Return value for RA and Dec may not be current due to polling interval.

4.2.74

2005-08-18

Fix: Problem where cached responses get corrupted causing type mismatch errors in some situations.

Fix: Error generated due to mismatch in variable type for Soft Error and Reset Mount options.

Fix: Return value for RA and Dec may always not match actual RA/Dec due to polling interval.

Add: Start converting driver into a telescope hub.

4.2.71

2005-07-11

Add: Soft Errors option to suppress raising error events. This is mostly useful for testing new scripts.

Add: Reset Mount option that allows you to reconnect to the Sphinx without the driver resetting it. This is mostly useful if you lose connectivity and want to reconnect but allow the mount to continue tracking. If the Star Book is in the initial startup state you will need to manually progress to the Chart/GOTO mode.

4.2.70

2005-07-03

Update: Rework setup dialog handling of connection to the Star Book to provide more conservative connection attempt and more accurate error messages.

4.2.68

2005-04-14

Fix: Reworked handling of concurrent network requests to eliminate driver hanging problem.

4.2.66

Release Candidate

2005-03-14

I have experienced a number of unexplained crashes and hangs with the driver in this update. Please let me know if you have any problems!

Add: SyncToAltAz, SyncToCoordinates, SyncToTarget

4.2.65

Release Candidate

2005-01-20

I have experienced a number of unexplained crashes and hangs with the driver in this update. Please let me know if you have any problems!

Update: Major rewrite of network interface code to support setting properties on Star Book and improve reliability of responses.

Fix: PulseGuide was incorrectly using duration in seconds rather than milliseconds(!).

Add: Altitude, Azimuth, SlewToAltAz, SlewToAltAzAsync

Update: Get SiteLongitude and SiteLatitude from Star Book.

Update: Get UTCDate from Star Book.

4.2.30

2004-10-29

Update: Tweak handling of no valid connection to make display of SetupDialog faster.

Moved from Beta to Release status!

4.2.20

2004-10-22

Fix: Home now works correctly.

Add: GuideRateDeclination, GuideRateRightAscension

4.2.15

2004-10-21

Fix: Rework code for network connection to not rely on setup dialog. This completely removes topmost window error and ensures consistent re-entry into telescope object.

4.2.14

2004-10-20

Fix: Remove topmost window error produced in some ASCOM clients. This may cause the setup dialog to appear underneath some badly behaved applications.

4.2.13

2004-10-20

Fix: Check for ability to connect in SetupDialog could return Not Found even if there was no problem.

4.2.12

2004-10-19

Fix: Remove check for ASCOM platform 4.0 for now as it is not publicly available and produces a couple of minor error messages.

4.2.11

2004-10-18

Fix: Look for astro32.dll in same directory as the driver.

4.2.10

2004-10-18

Fix: Corrected problem in installer that caused the driver not to register correctly in many circumstances.

Add: Initialise Star Book state for consistent behaviour.

Add: Set Star Book to maximum slewing rate for faster slews. Star Book automatically steps down as it approaches target.

4.2.9

2004-10-11

Update: Updated installer to create required ASCOM registry key for first time installation. No changes to the driver.

4.2.9

2004-10-10

Add: AbortSlew, CommandBlind, CommandString, PulseGuide, SiteLatitude, SiteLongitude, SlewToCoordinates, SlewToCoordinatesAsync, SlewToTarget, SlewToTargetAsync.

Moved from Alpha to Beta status!

4.2.1

2004-09-03

Update: Revised version number to be consistent with forthcoming ASCOM Platform 4.0

Update: Upgrade driver to ASCOM Platform 4.0.

Update: Replaced sidereal calculation with one based on Meeus.

Fix: Error in N/S and E/W handling on setup form.

Add: ApertureDiameter, ApertureArea, FocalLength.

0.2.1

2004-08-30

Update: Switch installer to Inno Setup. Remove unused files from previous installer.

0.2

2004-08-22

Fix: Fixed problem with some ASCOM clients having a problem connecting immediately after using the Setup dialog.

Add: Allow choice of polling interval.

0.1

2004-08-17

First public release

1. ASCOM Sphinx Driver (computer control)

Vixen only provide computer control of the Sphinx via the Japanese language Planetarium software Stella Gear. I have developed an English language driver that allows the Sphinx to be controlled from a wide range of software that supports the ASCOM standard.

My ASCOM Sphinx driver has its own web page here.

2. Cables and Sockets

The nine pin lead connecting the Star Book to the Sphinx is straight through with all pins connected.

Auto-guider

The auto-guider port can be configured as a normal ST4 compatible port or changed to support the Vixen AGA-1 auto-guider. Changing the configuration requires unscrewing the service panel on the back of the Star Book and flicking a dip switch.

LAN

This port is used to upgrade the firmware on the Star Book and provides computer control of your Sphinx via my ASCOM Sphinx driver. How you connect the Star Book to your computer dep ends on whether you have an existing network.

No network

If your network adapter does not support MDIX, you will need a network port on your computer and a special kind of network cable called a ?”cross over” cable.

Plug one end into your computer and the other end into the LAN port on the Star Book. After you switch on your Star Book, go to the About menu and note the IP address listed. Fire up the firmware upgrade software or ASCOM client software such as POTH (which comes with ASCOM) and enter the same IP address. You should now be able to talk to the Star Book from your computer.

Network

In this case you will need an available network port on your Hub or Switch and a normal network cable. Plug one end into your hub or switch and the other end into the LAN port on the Star Book. After you switch on your Star Book, go to the About menu and note the IP address listed.?

If your network has a DHCP server (often built into switches and routers) the IP address should look similar to the IP address on your computer. Fire up the firmware upgrade software or ASCOM client software such as POTH (which comes with ASCOM) and enter the same IP address. You should now be able to talk to the Star Book from your computer.

3. Comets

The Star Book is only capable of displaying/slewing to comets in its inbuilt database.

The Star Book is actually capable of displaying up to 20 comets. For some reason Vixen have chosen not to provide an interface to allow additions and changes.

2005-06-29 I have written software that allows 10 user specified comets to be loaded into the Star Book. Unfortunately the current firmware incorrectly ignores all the position information making this useless.

4. Display Issues

Brightness

Most users have complained about the Star Book display being too bright even on the lowest brightness settings. From firmware 1.0 build 18 the brightness settings are stored between sessions.

Vixen ended up providing an after market set of transmission reduction films which can be stuck to the screen to further reduce the brightness. Although Vixen and resellers try to charge for this (not Vixen America) you should strongly argue that the Star Book is pretty useless without it.

If you decide to solve this yourself, you should use neutral density film rather than red tinted film as coloured film will greatly reduce the readability of the colour display.

One user has also added a 3m privacy filter. As described by the maker, this filter uses patented microlouver technology which works like tiny vertical blinds. This restricts the viewing angle such that most of the light is directed directly outwards from the Star Book screen with much less lateral light escaping.

You may wish to experiment on whether the louvers should be vertically or horizontally oriented. The filter also needs to be cut to size and one filter should be enough to cover more than one Star Book display which may help defer the cost.

Objects

Despite touting a database of 22,725 objects, only a small subset of these can actually be selected for GOTO and manually slewing the telescope using the nudge buttons displays the names of Messier objects in the centre of the view but does not display the name of other objects such as stars and NGC/IC objects.

Horizon Line

*pending*

5. Firmware Updates

Firmware can be downloaded from the Vixen Global web site, or the Vixen Japan web site.

Note that Vixen tend to release updates on the Japanese web site well before making it available on the Global web site. However, the firmware update that can be downloaded from the Vixen Japanese web site includes all supported languages so can be used on any Star Book. Where the date the Vixen web sites are updated differ, each date will be shown separately in the table below.

At present, any version of the firmware can be installed over any other version without having to apply intermediate versions. Each new firmware update incorporates all the fixes from the previous versions.

Payware features

Although the Sphinx supports backlash compensation and autoguider support in the latest firmware, the ability to use these features requires the use of a software key which is acquired by additional payment to Vixen Japan that used to cost around $22 USD.

Although not entirely clear, these features are enabled by default (i.e. free) in firmware release 29. Based on a rough translation of the Japanese web site it appears that this feature was only enabled until the end of September 2006 however subsequent releases made these features available completely free.

Firmware releases

6. Polar Alignment Scope

The three legged obstacle obscuring the line of sight of the PAS has been criticised for blocking an unnecessary amount of light. Vixen claim this is to stop inquisitive fingers getting caught in the hole through the declination shaft but this could have been achieved in a more effective manner.

Illuminator in Southern Hemisphere

The Vixen polar alignment scope uses a printed graticule rather than an etched one. This coupled with an overly bright illumination led makes the PAS basically useless in the Southern hemisphere as the relatively dim stars in the reference constellation Octans are overwhelmed by the brightness of the graticule even on the lowest illumination setting. From yser reports, this is not a problem in the Northern hemisphere as Polaris is bright enough to overcome this problem.

At least one user has solved this problem by machining an adapter to allow the use of a Losmandy PAS with an etched graticule to be used.

2005-05-16 Vixen now have a fix for this that lowers the minimum illumination however this requires the mount to be returned to the dealer at your expense and is not considered a warranty repair.

This is a similar design flaw to the Display Brightness.

7. RA/Dec Stiffness

Stiff axes of rotation of RA and/or Dec seem commonplace with the Sphinx mount. If your mount is under warranty you should return it to your supplier with a request that the RA and/or Dec axes be loosened so the mount can be more easily balanced. You can also do this yourself but be aware this may void your warranty.

Declination axis

Remember you should only need to do this procedure once so a fair degree of caution should not be too onerous.

*pictures pending*

If you have the optional Dec clamping plate you first need to remove the two allen screws holding the clamping plate in position then lift it off.

The black ring, with two holes axially parallel to the Dec axis allow a tool such as a pair of dividers to be inserted to unscrew the black ring. Use a screwdriver as a lever between the limbs of the dividers if necessary.

You should mark the original position of the black ring using a pen or piece of sticky tape. Suggested movements are 1/16″ at a time, checking for desired looseness each time. Overdoing it will introduce errors of worm/pinion meshing. You can of course turn it back a little if you loosen it too much.

RA axis

Remember you should only need to do this procedure once so a fair degree of caution should not be too onerous.

Remove blue plastic cover at base end of RA axis.

Look inside and you will see a black ring. It is locked in position by a set screw on the outside edge of the black ring as shown in the picture. You should mark the original position of the black ring using a pen or piece of sticky tape. This photo shows how far I loosened my RA axis where 1 and 2 were originally together.

To loosen the set screw a 1.5mm allen key is required. You will need to further shorten the key so that the short end can fit into the small space available. Use this to unscrew the set screw several turns (or it will irreversibly damage the thread on the end of the RA axis).

Rotate the black ring a few millimeters using a pair of dividers or similar. You may need to use a screw driver between the legs of driver for added leverage but that wasn’t necessary on my mount.

Retighten the set screw (snug but not too tight or it will burr the thread) and check the movement in the axis. You may need to do this a couple times to get the right amount of play. Don’t make it too loose or you will introduce play in the worm which will make the behaviour of your mount very unpredictable.

8. RA/Dec Worm Adjustment

I was prompted to write this entry after my mount stopped slewing in RA, rendering it useless. In my case the RA motor was actively trying to spin but was motionless; a situation that would have lead to burn out if I didn’t intervene.

Apart from axis stiffness, another less common issue is tightness in the worm itself that results in the mount having difficulty slewing even when the OTA is well balanced, or strange periodic error curves. This is not an adjustment to perform simply because you think your mount could track more accurately!

Read all the instructions below before proceeding! This procedure will probably void your warrantly so proceed at your own peril.

You need to be completely certain that you have an issue with your worm tightness before making any of the changes proposed below, as maladjustment may seriously impair the periodic error of your mount and may even damage the worm.

The first step is to remove the blue plastic covers. If you look closely at the Sphinx logo plate you will notice that at one end the plastic has an open end through to the edge of the cover. Apply gentle pressure to the logo plate in the direction of the open end and the logo plate should slide off.

This will uncover two hex screws that need to be removed with an allen key. Do the same for both sides of the mount and remove the two blue plastic covers.

The next step is to remove the electronics assembly. This involves removing the two hex screws at the top left and middle bottom in the photo to the left…

… and the hex screws at the top right and middle bottom in the photo to the right.

?

You then need to remove the lock lever on the counter weight shaft (not shown) in order to get enough clearance to unscrew the cap on the end of the counter weight shaft. Pay attention to the orientation of the lock lever when you remove it and take care not to rotate the counterweight shaft lock as you may have trouble engaging the lock after you reassemble the mount. The electronics assembly should now easily slip out. Be careful as the wires are relatively short.

Declination axis worm

?Note that this picture shows the mount inverted to make the screws and counterweight shaft cap more obvious. You should make any adjustments with the mount in the normal position.

The Declination worm tension screw will now be accessible. Turn the screw clockwise to reduce the pressure on the worm. The two screws either side of this are used to balance the worm and may also need to be adjusted depending on how tight or loose the worm is.

If adjusting these three screws does not change the tightness of the worm, you may need to loosen the two hex screw facing up in this picture. This could be very problematic as these screws appear to be torque tightened.

It is recommended that you make this adjustment while there is power to the mount so you can test the adjustment by slewing in the declination axis using the Star Book controls.

RA axis worm

?I was not able to access the RA worm tension screw with a normal allen key due to the lack of space between the motor and the channel with the recessed RA worm tension screw in it. It may be possible, and would be highly desirable, to adjust this without removing the motor with a slightly shortened allen key which would allow the tension to be adjusted while there is power to the mount so you can test the adjustment by slewing in the right ascension axis using the Star Book controls. Alternatively the worm can be turned by hand to check for tightness.

The RA worm adjustment screw is harder to access may require the RA motor to be removed. The first step is to remove the RA motor cog shown in the picture above. There is a small grub screw in the side which must be loosened to allow the cog to slide off. Once the cog is removed you will need to remove the four screws holding the motor in place then carefully move the motor out of the way of the RA worm.

The RA worm adjustment screw should now be accessible. Turn the screw clockwise to reduce the pressure on the worm. The two screws either side of this are used to balance the worm and shouldn’t need to be adjusted in normal circumstances.

This adjustment will most likely have significant impact on the periodic error of your mount. You should conduct long term periodic error curves to confirm the mount is performing correctly.

When replacing the RA motor, you will need to ensure that RA motor cog is firmly fixed to the shaft. This means ensuring the grub screw in it is tightened sufficiently but not too tightly as otherwise it will strip the thread.

Restore all the removed pieces in the reverse order that they were removed and you should now have a more usable instrument. I recommend not replacing the blue plastic covers until after you have confirmed the mount is slewing and tracking correctly.

Thanks to Jim Stratigos and Pierre Franquet for their input into this article.

9. Slewing and Tracking

10. Star Book future

11. Wish list

Known Bugs and missing Features with latest firmware and hardware. Many of these have

subsequently

been addressed by Vixen.

12. Websites of Interest

Advocacy

Vendors

I am only actively maintaining the English version of Scopulator at present. It has been tested and confirmed to work properly with:

Internet Explorer 5.5+
Netscape Navigator 6+
Mozilla 1.6+
Choose language and browser
English Scopulator 2004-06-10
Portuguese

Old version
Choose language and browser
English Scopulator 2003-06-08 for Netscape Navigator 4+
Portuguese Scopulator 2003-06-08 for IE4+ or NN6+ Scopulator 2003-06-08 for Netscape Navigator 4+

Had enough time to unpack them and set it up but without power there wasn’t much else to do.

I bought a 12V DC 2 Amp regulated power supply from Jaycar which does the job nicely.

Spent half an hour in the evening practicing a GOTO alignment before the cold got the better of me.

More details later!

Ah! The joys of waiting by the mail box.

Final shopping list was:

• VC200LDG
• SXW with SX-HAL110 (inc. brightness reducer)
• 2661 SX Tube Attachment Plate
• 1.9kg Weight

I can’t understate how frustrating this can be for simple things like focussing.

The lack of a motor drive and setting circles are also major impediments to getting more out of this.

Conditions: clear sky, no wind

Equipment:

• 4″ short tube achromat
• Omcon Plossl 40mm, Antares SW 10mm, GTO Plossl 6.3mm
• Antares Barlow 2x

Very nice night, typical of the last few days. Due to various social commitments of the season I haven’t had a chance to do much more than point out Jupiter and Saturn in my new short tube until tonight.

The sky was clear and fairly dark. The contrast tends to vary depending on the amount of light catching haze north of where I live in Macquarie. I’m still getting the hang of viewing classification, but I would say that the visibility and transparency were very good.

I decided to start out by checking out Saturn to see what the viewing was like – Wow!

This is about the eighth time I’ve had my short tube out and it is the best night so far in terms of viewing conditions.

The image was nice and sharp at 53x and I could see the shadow of the rings at the edges of the planet. Adding the Barlow for 105x, showed some vague mottling of colour on the planet and the shadow of the planet on the back of the rings. I switched eyepieces and continued at 162x, the highest power I can get with my current eyepiece collection.

Although the contrast was down, I could distinctly detect equatorial banding of reddish brown hue and an overall yellowish hue to the planet and rings.

I noticed something in the ring system to the left in the field. There appeared to be a fine dark seam in the ring system! Extended viewing showed a clear gap in the left Ansa, and less noticeably on the right.

This gap was first discovered by Giovanni Cassini in 1676 and is now called the Cassini division. The gap was not visible in the centre where the rings crossed in front and behind the planet.

PHOTO CREDIT: John Bally, Dave Devine, and Ralph Sutherland

I turned to my second main target for the evening; the Trapezium in M42, the Orion Nebula.

The Trapezium is a very young star cluster in the heart of M42, the Orion Nebula. Although originally considered to only contain three, then four stars, it is now know to have six stars down to magnitude 11 with another two stars, G and H at magnitude 16.

Since the viewing was very good, and most comments I have heard indicate viewing conditions is the limiting factor for resolving the Trapezium, I decided to have a go at finding E and F.

I had my short tube set up in Alt-Az mode and spent a while allowing the Trapezium to drift across the field of view at 162x. I soon started to notice a bulge facing away from the centre of the group around the brightest star C. With averted vision I could see a much smaller pin prick of light almost lost in the brightness of its close companion. This is star F.

I dropped back to 105x and although I imagined I could see a bulge it was too marginal to decide whether it was real or not. Back to 162x and now for star E. This one was very different from F. It tended to flick in and out of view and appeared more diffuse than F. I saw it about six times while I was looking for it and it tended to be more noticeable in averted vision.

The Trapezium is a good challenge to set yourself with any telescope you get a chance to view through.

I haven’t commented on the Orion Nebula itself, indeed a fine object in any telescope. I wasn’t spending any time on this tonight, but I was interested in an unexpected phenomenon while viewing the Trapezium stars.

After looking at the same chunk of sky for over an hour, I noticed that as I looked from the Trapezium stars to the surrounding nebulosity the contrast jumped substantially. The nebula had gone from a haze of various shades of gray to being alive with contrasting light and dark arms and channels. This was a good reminder that the longer and more often you look at something the more you see. The recent effort by Peter Ogilvie in viewing the Waterfall Nebula definitely reinforces this for me.

I have looked through a number of telescopes over the last fifteen years and have been sufficiently interested to maintain an armchair interest in astronomy for many years. This one viewing session has elevated that interest from a passive curiosity to a gnawing hunger for more!