You can see a surprising amount of detail with your naked eyes (or reading glasses...), if you bother to look. But a magnifying glass really shows off the beauty of the snow crystals. I've got an inexpensive jewelers loupe
that worked really well. If you don't have a magnifying glass, do you have binoculars? Look through the wrong end and hold the eyepieces so they're almost touching the snow. It should work like a magnifying glass. Wow!
Of course if you have a special microscope, you could get views like these. But take a look -- I think you'll be impressed with what you can see with the tools you have on hand, even if it's just your own two eyes.
