Ascorbic Acid Fractals

I grew these fractals on a microscope slide the other day, starting from a crushed up Vitamin C pill and a small amount of water to dissolve it. After a couple days of sitting in a small plastic cup, I used an eyedropper to get a sample of the liquid from near the top of the solution, the weaker area of the solution. If you use the stronger solution, when it dries, the resulting crystals are so thick, and the DOF of the microscope lens so thin, that it kind of defeats the purpose and all I got were blurred images with a thin slice of in focus area that was basically meaningless.

Anyway, this was an experiment in technique and I think it came out nice. The first shot is just with the polarizer and analyzer and the others were with an added piece of acrylic plastic in the microscopes light path, which has the effect of adding a lot more light and many un-natural colors to the equation.

Even though these are JPG's and only saved at quality 7 in CS5, some of them are pretty large, so the thread may take some time to load.

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Funky. Gave me a bit of a headache though. Kind of cool.

cool series, Mitch - and very colorful

Thanks for looking AbPho and Dean. The patterns are one of a kind, and I guess, so are the colors. The colors come from my manipulation of the polarizer and acrylic piece though.

Wow, these are so cool Mitch! Where did you get that idea?

Thanks Kurt. Fractals from drying liquids is not new. As far back as the 60's, there were chemicals you could buy to paint on glass, usually the rear surface of aquariums, that when dried, formed these kinds of patterns.

But viewing dried vitamin c on a slide with polarized light is fairly new to me, yet it's been done for decades. I don't know if there is any useful knowledge gained from it, but it sure is pretty.

very cool indeed... psychadelic!

Thanks Martin, Some of them looked like bird feathers to me last night when I made them.

wonderful pattern n colors u got there...agree it looks somthin from 60's(or the hippie style)...though i was not born in 60's...just saw them in Television...

Thanks Rakesh. Yes, the colors and patterns are beautiful. Each one is different and no two are ever alike.