One of the new frontiers of astronomical research is the exploration of time
variability on the sky at different wavelengths and flux levels. We have
carried out a pilot project using DPOSS data to study strong variables and
transients, and are now extending it to the new Palomar-QUEST synoptic sky
survey. We report on our early findings and outline the methodology to be
implemented in preparation for a real-time transient detection pipeline. In
addition to large numbers of known types of highly variable sources (e.g., SNe,
CVs, OVV QSOs, etc.), we expect to find numerous transients whose nature may be
established by a rapid follow-up. Whereas we will make all detected variables
publicly available through the web, we anticipate that email alerts would be
issued in the real time for a subset of events deemed to be the most
interesting. This real-time process entails many challenges, in an effort to
maintain a high completeness while keeping the contamination low. We will
utilize distributed Grid services developed by the GRIST project, and implement
a variety of advanced statistical and machine learning techniques.Comment: 5 pages, 2 postscript figures, uses adassconf.sty. To be published
in: "ADASS XIV (2004)", Eds. Patrick Shopbell, Matthew Britton and Rick
Ebert, ASP Conference Serie