The snowflake is known for its infinite beauty, with science long having established that no two snowflakes are alike. Photographers have managed to capture close-up images of this miracle of nature for well over a century, but recently, visionary inventor Nathan Myhrvold built a camera with a microscopic lens so advanced that it can capture images of snowflakes only millimeters across in mind-boggling detail (just check the photo above).

Capturing such images is no easy task. Just building the special camera with a lens made of artificial sapphire took 18 months, and capturing quality images requires being in extremely frigid temperatures of up to 20 degrees below so that the snowflakes don’t melt.

In the end, Myhrvold wound up with a trio of new photographs that he claims are the world’s highest-resolution images of snowflakes. To reproduce so much detail each image is a composite made up of some 100 shots.

“Snowflakes are a great example of hidden beauty,” Myhrvold said in a statement. “Water, an incredibly familiar thing to all of us, is quite unfamiliar when you see it in this different view. The intricate beauty of snowflakes derives from their crystal structure, which is a direct reflection of the microscopic aspects of the water molecule.”

Curious to see the photos and stories behind them for yourself? Take a look right here.