The New Milky Way: a wide-field survey of optical transients near the Galactic plane

Understand

Currently, it may take days for a bright nova outburst to be detected.

• With the few exceptions, little is known about novae behaviour prior to maximum light.
• A theoretically-predicted population of ultra-fast novae with t2<1d is evading observational discovery because it is not possible to routinely organize fast follow-up observations of nova candidates.
• With the aim of brining the detection time of novae and other bright (V<13.5) optical transients from days down to hours or less, we develop an automated wide-field (8x6 deg.) system capable of surveying the whole Milky Way area visible from the observing site in one night.