[Leica] Snow under the scope

[Aram Langhans]

Well, finally some snow that looked good enough to try.  Nice looking 
flakes, but it is not much below freezing, so hard to keep then intact 
to put them under the microscope.  They survive OK, but the light from 
the scope takes its toll.  It is an overhead LED, but light is still 
light, and black is still black and absorbs light and heats up.  With 
only 2 degrees F leeway, it is not enough.  Will have to hope for more 
snow when it gets colder. Here are are a few first attempts.  I had to 
change background materials as the one I bought was too fibery and you 
could hardly see the flakes for the fibers.  These are just black matte 
board, all I could find that was handy.

This one is not too bad as it was setting a bit above the surface of the 
board, so not too distracting.

_DSC2588 (leica-users.org) 
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Aram/w22_001/s/_DSC2588.jpg.html>

This one shows the board texture and you can see where the flake is 
melting already.

_DSC2598-Edit (leica-users.org) 
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Aram/w22_001/s/_DSC2598-Edit.jpg.html>

And this one had melted almost flat on the board so no real separation.  
The texture of the board is very evident, but still way better than the 
felt I had originally thought to use.

_DSC2590-Edit (leica-users.org) 
<http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Aram/w22_001/s/_DSC2590-Edit.jpg.html>

I am thinking I will take some microscope slides, freeze them, then put 
them on the matte board.  They should hold the flakes far enough away 
from the board surface that the texture might not show up.

These are all stacked images of 3-5 images for DOF.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Aram

-- 
Aram Langhans
(Semi) Retired Science Teacher
& Unemployed photographer
  
“The Human Genome Project has proved Darwin more right than Darwin himself would ever have dared dream.”   James D. Watson