Previous issues of Alternate Universe have reported on the discovery of ancient telescopes, one in fact being a long focus Galilean refractor built into the Great Pyramid, while US Army engineers have also found evidence of ancient reflecting telescopes near Ancient Babylon.
It has long been known that both the Ancient Egyptians and the Romans produced very fine and often sophisticated glassware, however new evidence has recently surfaced which suggests that the glassmakers, in producing varieties of coloured glass, might have also stumbled across the properties of modern optical narrow-band filters.
This new evidence comes in the form of an image recently produced by ASNSW Astro-imager extraordinaire, Mike Bourbon-Jones, whose image above clearly shows the faint and elusive Canis Rabidus Nebula in Canis Major. By using a newly developed Hydrogen Delta narrow-band filter through his new 12.5” ƒ/8 Corrected Dall-Kirkham (CDK) Carbon-Fibre PlaneWave telescope, Mike was able to capture this remarkable nebula, which was unknown to modern astronomers until very recently.
As can be seen in the image above, the core of the nebula indeed shows an image of what appears to be a rabid dog. From this, it now seems that the naming of the constellations Canis Major and Canis Minor were either a miraculous coincidence or is new proof that the ancients did in fact possess hitherto unknown technology.
This discovery could have enormous implications. Even if the Ancients were capable of producing a H-Delta filter, could they also have produced some form of imaging equipment?
Dr. Rube Goldberg of the Nevada Polytechnic Institute in Las Vegas has been contacted in connection with this discovery and proposes to visit the Near East along with a support team from the University of Bürgerweldt to carry out some on-site research and re-evaluation of ancient artefacts stored by regional museums.