I brought in some dried plants a few days ago, and in the comparative ‘warmth’ of the garage, they have gotten even more dried out, and some parts have fallen off. This little seed pod was one of many that littered the work area.
It is tiny, about one-third the size of a grain of white rice. Maybe 2 x 3mm at most.
I had the camera set up with a microscope objective for work (photographing the results of destructive testing of an epoxy sample again), so naturally I grabbed one of these to do a 100-image focus stack.
(At 96 images, and 3 mm ‘deep’, the individual moves between images were about 0.03mm, or 30 microns, deep.)
No idea what species or why a seed pod should look so much like a move-style alien, but there is is in all its glory (and dirt; there is a lot of gunk there). It is sitting on what looks to the eye to be smooth, finely-sanded plywood; it looks like a carpet up close in this photo.
The setup is new, but the concepts are the same. I have added some support rings to make the whole thing more rigid, which great reduces shake after pressing the shutter button. Yes, I know; I should be doing remote shutter trigger—one of the days I surely shall. :)