Perfect Crystals

In Monday's post I used the adjective "nearly" when discussing the idea of a flawless quartz sphere because any gemologist will tell you that very, very few gems are indeed "flawless". At some magnification, some inclusion will betray its origins, especially in a stone as large as this sphere. That said, an entire industry was built around the search and discovery of crystals large and perfect enough for precision lenses and other optical equipment. Then again, this material is quite rare in nature and demand for it birthed---or at least greatly support the establishment of---yet another industry: synthetic crystal growth.
"Eye clean" quartz spheres are rare enough that one generally wants to check its authenticity. Fairly easily done with two crossed sheets of polarized film (such as those found in some 3D movie goggles) and a light source. "How" is a longer story that I don't want to get into at the moment, but I would be entirely overjoyed to expound on the process to any interested parties...it involves a bit of rotation and if you get a wink from the stone, Robert's your father's brother and the stone gets a nod.
Heritage Auctions' natural history consultants and I also scrutinized the sphere with an intense scrute and a strong light and discovered very, very tiny fibrous inclusions that in the gem trade would be called silk. Holding such a sphere up to a strong point source of light can produce what is called asterism...the optical property that gives us star sapphires, rubies and, albeit very faint in this case, star quartz.
This is the first shot I made of the specimen. Definitely shows the sphericity and clarity, but all messed up with reflections: the diffuser is apparent three times, the table, yada yada... Interestingly, none of the surface nor internal reflections are observable in the reflection of the sphere on the table.
Nonetheless, it was back to the drawing board.