Dendritic crystal plumes in opal

[Scarodactyl]

This was my main entry to the Small World contest this year, and seeing the results go up reminded me I never actually posted it here. Whoops.

Shot with my QV HR 2.5x/0.21. I have found this objective really useful--it is absolutely not a 5x HR but it covers aps-C and has relatively immense working distance of 40.6mm--it is not 95mm parfocal and thus can have 4.6mm more working distance than a normal mitutoyo 5x in spite of its higher NA. I haven't had much time for photography recently but the extra working distance has been great for examination of the crystals I've been growing while they are still in their crucibles.

[Adalbert]

very nice !

[Beatsy]

An interesting and otherworldly image. Very nice! Cheers. Beats.

[jmc]

What a cool image. Thanks for posting it.

[rjlittlefield]

The image is great -- much different from anything I can recall seeing before.

...examination of the crystals I've been growing while they are still in their crucibles.

I'm intrigued by the bit about "crucibles". What sort of crystals have you been growing, and for what purpose?

--Rik

[Pau]

Very nice strange forest, here dendritic has full sense from δενδρος = tree

[Scarodactyl]

I'm intrigued by the bit about "crucibles". What sort of crystals have you been growing, and for what purpose?

--Rik

I run a lab gem business, mostly focused on repurposing offcuts and failed runs of industrial crystals for gem usage, but I'm also interested in growing my own, so I've been running some small-scale experiments. I haven't made anything big and clear enough to qualify as a gem, but the results are often nice to look at. It's definitely hard to get lighting down into a crucible though, harder to get quality lighting. As an example my last run produced some tiny crystals of cobalt spinel along with a mystery orange crystal (shot with my mitutoyo 10x)