Snowflakes!
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As some of ya'll may know, I am a Snowologist in my spare time - and the winters here in Minnesota give me ample opportunity for my studies. I have taken some extreme close-ups of a simple Stellar Plate Snowflake, magnified 1500 times! These images are best created in temps of -15F.
Please click for hi-res.
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I had no idea there are so many different kinds! It's amazing how geometric and straight they are, most things in nature are curvy and appear random. baffling!!
Great stuff, snowing here in Manchester too!
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I actually have never seen snow
because i life in tropical country .. but I think your snowflakes can be used to decorate my Christmas tree 
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@olishea said:
It's amazing how geometric and straight they are, most things in nature are curvy and appear random. baffling!!
I would think most things which are organic and curvy are that way because of of flowing water, either moving within them or over and around them. Once liquid becomes a solid you have crystallization which in nature is typically very geometric as shown in the snowflakes. It does baffle me though, that with snow, you have a crystallization process repeated over and over very quickly and in the same environmental conditions, yet each occurrence of the same process will yield so many different variations. I think it's either nature's built in code to make all things unique which occurs during freezing, or perhaps it is the water droplets themselves that are all unique to begin with.
Anyway, nice job on the snowflake!
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Thanks for the comments, guys
Here is a link that explains the physics of why snowflakes always look different - basically its because of the staggering number of combinations of water molecules possible...each combo will create a different shape. Fascinating stuff!
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@unknownuser said:
Brilliant images, what are you using to get the magnification? Or are they images from an electron microscope or something like that?
Oh, I use a home-made snowflake photo-microscope (aka Sketchup, Twilight render, and a tad of Photoshop)
Here's a Sketchup screenie...drawn and rendered 100% by me
I did roughly base it on the real thing tho.
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