DEMONEX, the DEdicated MONitor of EXotransits, was designed to be a low-cost, 0.5 meter, robotic telescope assembled mostly from commercially-available parts. The primary science goal of DEMONEX is to monitor bright stars hosting transiting planets in order to provide a homogeneous data set of precise relative photometry for all transiting systems visible from its location at Winer Observatory in Sonoita, Arizona. The DEMONEX observatory was the PhD dissertation project of OSU graduate student Jason Eastman.

DEMONEX used a 20-inch Meade RCX400 telescope and MaxMount with an FLI PL3041 2Kx2K CCD, filter wheel, and guide telescope to create a fully-autonomous robotic telescope.  It operated at the Winer Observatory in Sonoita, Arizona, from 2008 until it was retired in 2013 when the Meade MaxMount failed and was irreparable.

The 20-inch Meade optical telescope assembly was shipped back to OSU where it remained in storage until we could get a new mount and install it in the observatory dome on top of Smith Laboratory on the OSU Campus where it will be used for teaching and visual observing starting in 2024 (part of a renovation of the Smith Lab dome).