Designed specifically with the JTW Astronomy GTR mount in mind, but this SHOULD work with pretty much any OnStepX mount running SWS.

This is NOT a complicated/fancy script - it just scrapes the SWS web interface and looks for keywords in the motor statuses and sends a text message alerting the user as appropriate. I developed it as an easy way to detect/get notified about collisions.

Setup

1. Install dependencies:

   pip install requests beautifulsoup4

2. Configure environment variables:

   Copy the example environment file:

   cp .env.example .env

   Edit .env and fill in your actual values:

   • PHONE_NUMBER: Your phone number (without carrier domain, e.g., 5551234567)
   • EMAIL: Your Gmail account for sending SMS alerts
   • PASSWORD: Your Gmail app password (see Google's guide)
   • SWS_URL: URL to your SWS web interface (e.g., http://192.168.1.100/index.htm)

   Important: Never commit the .env file with real credentials to version control!

3. Run the script:

   Load environment variables and run:

   # On Linux/Mac:
   export $(cat .env | xargs) && python mount_scraper.py
   
   # Or use a tool like python-dotenv
   # pip install python-dotenv
   # Add to script: from dotenv import load_dotenv; load_dotenv()

4. Set up as a Cron job or Lambda:

   Run this as a Cron job or AWS Lambda function to regularly check the interface. There are almost certainly better ways to solve this, but it works.