Menthol sunset

[Charles Krebs]

A little while ago Cactusdave showed some excellent crystal shots, one of which was menthol. I had never tried that substance before so I picked up a small package. I'll need to experiment a little more... the results were very different than Daves. These shots were taken with basic crossed polarizers (no phase plates). The slides were simple to make... a small amount melted on a slide with no cover slip. (The first one reminded me of a sunset over the ocean... hence the title name )

[curt0909]

Great shots, as always, Charles. I also purchased some menthol after seeing Cactus Dave's post. It looks like a great subject.

[Sumguy01]

Very nice.
Thanks for sharing.

[micro_pix]

Great textures and colour.

[Cactusdave]

One of the great things about crystallisation is that it seldom happens the same way twice, even with the same chemical and (seemingly) the same conditions. When we played with menthol we noticed that the speed of cooling affected the type of crystals formed and that the crystals did not remain static in appearance over time, even after crystallisation was complete. Larger crystals reorganised into smaller more needle shaped crystals over a matter of hours or days. Interesting results were also had by only partially remelting a slide, so that a few patches of 'old' crystals were available to seed the new crystallisation.

[vasselle]

Superbes images

[neurodoc]

The first image makes me think of van Gogh... a really beautiful example of what is sometimes called "found" art, i.e., something found in nature, or even something man made but never intended as such, resembles artwork. Of course you did have to select the image and frame it, which IS an artistic act...

Bravo!

--and the fact it's done with menthol seems appropriate...I think van Gogh was an absinthe drinker...not menthol but similarly aromatic!

[Marek Mis]

Very nice images, especially the first one.

Marek

[Jacek]

Super