Snowflakes and ice crystals
Wilson Bentley is widely acknowledged as the pre-eminent pioneer in snowflake photography. Snowflakes are formed by the aggregation of ice crystals in the atmosphere. If the ice crystals form independently and don’t join to form snowflakes, they can appear as a phenomenon known as diamond dust, where they glint in the sunlight as they gently waft down through the lower atmosphere. Ice crystals higher up interact with the light to form haloes and other optical phenomena around the Sun or Moon.
Today’s post is about photography of snowflakes and the related ice crystal formations involved with them. I’ve included a few sample images and a list of links that you can visit to see more. The person in the first link, Alexey Kljatov, shares his techniques for budding snowflake photographers. Enjoy the beauty.
Alexey Kljatov
Pam Eveleigh
Detached Retina
fwwidall
Mark Cassino
david drexler
Ken Libbrecht
linden.g
ChaoticMind75
Let it snow.
rjb
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It has been said that no two snow flakes are of the same pattern. Is this true?
I don’t think it’s possible to say with certainty that no two snowflakes have ever been identical, but I think we can estimate the number of possible arrangements of the ice crystals in a snow flake and compare that to an estimate of the number of snowflakes that have ever been. I guess the saying that no two snowflakes are identical indicates that the first number exceeds the second. Not quite as punchy as “No two snowflakes are alike” is it?-)
rjb