Panoptes is a science project which purpose is to build a low cost robotic telescopes, that can be used to detect transits of exoplanets. An individual Panoptes cost about 6000 €, and you can easily find all the materials that you need on the web.

Exoplanets are planets beyond our own solar system. Thousands have been discovered in the past two decades, mostly with NASA's Kepler Space Telescope.

These worlds come in a huge variety of sizes and orbits. Some are gigantic planets hugging close to their parent stars; others are icy, some rocky. NASA and other agencies are looking for a special kind of planet: one that's the same size as Earth, orbiting a sun-like star in the habitable zone.