One of the crystals I caught this year. I was doing tests with my cheap microscope objectives because I wasn't quite happy with how sharp the images were. Despite being in focus, they always seemed soft. While I should probably invest in optics that cost more than $20 US, I was indeed using these objectives incorrectly. I've now got the spacing down better. And, if I am able to shoot pixel shift resolution like this image here, the clarity and sharpness increase significantly. This year has been a little meh for snow. The crystals I have photographed have been fairly decent, but there just hasn't been very much. For this particular session, this crystal was one of the last ones. They quickly changed from nice large detailed crystals to crystals with heavy rime, which is what we see here.

[MikeNArk]

I see what you mean. This crystal seems to be embedded with thousands of individual gem stones. Excellent detailed capture.

[aitrus3]

I see what you mean. This crystal seems to be embedded with thousands of individual gem stones. Excellent detailed capture.

Thanks!
Yeah under the right conditions rime can be kinda pretty, the only problem I have with it is that, like globular star clusters, one rimed crystal looks like another with only minor changes in shape.