  Transient surveys are a vital tool in exploring the dynamic universe, with
radio transients acting as beacons for explosive and highly energetic
astrophysical phenomena. However, performing commensal transient surveys using
radio imaging can require a significant amount of computing power, data storage
and time. With the instrumentation available to us, and with new and exciting
radio interferometers in development, it is essential that we develop efficient
methods to probe the radio transient sky. In this paper, we present results
from an commensal short duration transient survey, on time scales of 8 seconds,
128 seconds and 1 hour, using data from the MeerKAT radio telescope. The
dataset used was obtained as part of a galaxy observing campaign, and we focus
on the field of NGC 5068. We present a quick, wide field imaging strategy to
enable fast imaging of large datasets, and develop methods to efficiently
filter detected transient candidates. No transient candidates were identified
on the time scales of 8 seconds, 128 seconds and 1 hour, leading to competitive
limits on the transient surface densities of $6.7{\times}10^{-5}$ deg$^{-1}$,
$1.1{\times}10^{-3}$ deg$^{-1}$, and $3.2{\times}10^{-2}$ deg$^{-1}$ at
sensitivities of 56.4 mJy, 19.2 mJy, and 3.9 mJy for the respective time
scales. We find one possible candidate that could be associated with a stellar
flare, that was rejected due to strict image quality control. Further short
time-scale radio observations of this candidate could give definite results to
its origin.
