SXTs, but it also possesses some rather unusual characteristics.

XTE J1118+480 was discovered on March 29 2000 with the RXTE All-Sky Monitor as a brightening X-ray source. Pointed RXTE observations confirmed the presence of this high Galactic latitude source ($l=157.7^o$, $b=+62.3^o$), with a rather hard power law emission spectrum of photon index $\Gamma \simeq 1.8$ up to 30 keV. It was subject to rapid X-ray flares, but no pulsation was detected. Retrospective ASM analysis revealed that the source experienced another modest outburst in January 2000 (Remillard et al. 2000; see Fig. \[fig:lightcurve\]). BATSE observations showed that the source is visible up to 120 keV (Wilson & McCollough 2000), and a 6.2 mJy [ (at 15 GHz)]{} variable radio counterpart was later discovered (Pooley & Waldram 2000).

The $V \sim 13$ optical counterpart of XTE J1118+480 was found to correspond to an $18.8$ mag star in the USNO catalog by Uemura, Kato & Yamaoka (2000; see also Uemura et al. 2000). A photometric modulation on a 4.1 hr period was observed by Cook et al. (2000) and was later confirmed as a plausible orbital period by Patterson (2000) and Uemura et al. (2000; see Stull, Ioannou & Webb in Haswell et 