  To maximize the number of transients discovered on the sky, should
sky-monitoring projects stare at one location or continually jump from location
to location, tiling the sky? If tiling is preferred, what cadence maximizes the
discovery rate? As sky monitoring is a growing part of astronomical observing,
utilized to find such phenomena as supernovae, microlensing, and planet
transits, well thought out answers to these questions are increasingly
important. Answers are sky, source, and telescope dependent and should include
information about the source luminosity distribution near the observation
limit, the duration of variability, the nature of the dominant noise, and the
magnitude of down and slew times. Usually, a critical slope of the effective
cumulative transient apparent luminosity distribution (Log N - Log S) at the
limiting magnitude will define when "tile" or "stare" is superior. For
shallower slopes, when "tile" is superior, optimal cadences and pointing
algorithms are discussed. For transients discovered on a single exposure or
time-contiguous series of exposures, when down and slew times are small and the
character of the noise is unchanged, the most productive cadence for isotropic
power-law luminosity distributions is the duration of the transient -- faster
cadences waste time re-discovering known transients, while slower cadences
neglect transients occurring in other fields. A "cadence creep" strategy might
find an optimal discovery cadence experimentally when one is not uniquely
predetermined theoretically. Guest investigator programs might diversify
previously dedicated sky monitoring telescopes by implementing bandpasses and
cadences chosen to optimize the discovery of different types of transients.
Example analyses are given for SuperMACHO, LSST, and GLAST.
