Myhrvold used a homemade prototype described as a mixture of a microscope and a camera. The American scientist, inventor, photographer and former Microsoft CTO took 18 months to build the 100 megapixel camera capable of capturing the microscopic detail of a snowflake.
Using the camera, he took 100 photos of each snowflake in rapid succession and then stacked them so that the entire resulting image was in focus. The results show the lush variety of snowflakes measuring a few tens of millimeters in diameter captured in Alaska and Canada.
Another of the good ideas that have emerged from the confinement due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Myhrvold's camera is comprised of a 100-megapixel microscope made of carbon fiber with a sapphire lens and a liquid-cooled stage illuminated by ultra-high-speed LED flashes to prevent snowflakes from melting or vaporizing too quickly.
'I added a cooling stage to the microscope, as well as high-speed pulsed LEDs, which reduced the heat emitted by the microscope. This helped extend the time that the snowflakes remained frozen and gave me more time to photograph and focus the images, "explains the expert.
Myhrvold, as an inventor, has more than 850 patents to his name and has published peer-reviewed research on planetary science, paleontology, and climate science.
