Transients in the Local Universe

Understand

Two different reasons make the search for transients in the nearby Universe (d < 200 Mpc) interesting and urgent.

• First, there exists a large gap in the luminosity of the brightest novae (-10 mag) and that of sub-luminous supernovae (-16 mag).
• However, theory and reasonable speculation point to several potential classes of objects in this &#34;gap&#34;.
• Such objects are best found in the Local Universe.