Trippy colored landscape (the solution revealed!)

[rjlittlefield]

Hmm--small, mundane, irritating, formed by heat and involved with heat in its useful life, with a metallic look and sheen. Could it be a battery contact, or the contact button at the base of a lightbulb?

Neat images and stereos, too. Lot of work on the latter!

You're getting warmer. (Pardon the pun!)

But no, neither of those. In normal operation, this device is a lot more dynamic.

Editing the stereo has been quite a lot of work. On the bright side, it has given me a better feel for how I would like to do stereo editing. More entries for the ever growing "requested features" list...

--Rik

[Saul]

Relay contact

[rjlittlefield]

Very close, but...

No electrical signal is involved in triggering a state change of this device.

--Rik

[Saul]

Solder

[rjlittlefield]

Solder

Alas, no. Now you're getting not so warm, in at least two senses of that word.

--Rik

[Saul]

Brake pad

[rjlittlefield]

Nope, not a brake pad.

But maybe I should look close at a brake pad sometime -- there might be something unexpected and interesting there also!

Continuing to step outward, here is full frame at 10.4X, so about 2.3 mm x 3.5 mm on subject. I've marked all the areas shown by earlier images.

--Rik

[MarkSturtevant]

Spark plug terminal.

[rjlittlefield]

Aha -- another potential subject!

But no, not a spark plug terminal.

--Rik

[Saul]

Gas burner part

[rjlittlefield]

Nope, no gas burners in the vicinity. This device was in use in my house, which is all electric. It operated for many years before failing suddenly, in a manner that was painful to me personally.

--Rik

[leonardturner]

The end product of a shorted or burned out circuit. Filament of ancient coffee maker?

Leonard

[rjlittlefield]

Nope, sorry -- not a filament, not a coffee maker.

Next step out...

This is a crop of where I started, when I believed that if the surface were interesting at all, it would be so flat and so large that synthetic stereo would not work well.

So, I shot this pair as "true stereo" -- two stacks from physically different viewing angles. The stereo artifacts in this pair are due to shiny facets reflecting the light differently in two views.

Shortly after shooting these stacks, I concluded that true stereo wasn't such a great idea after all, and moved up to higher magnification with synthetic stereo.

--Rik

[Saul]

Becoming interesting ...

"No electrical signal is involved in triggering a state change of this device."
"I'm quite sure the colors are related to heat...this subject has at least two different relations to heat"
"I expect that we're looking at some combination of metal compounds, possibly in different crystalline states."
"I expect that some of the colors are structural and some are pigment, but I am less confident about the pigment aspect."
"There may be some glassy material, but certainly nothing like a commercial ceramic glaze."
"Any form of carbon-based plastic must be a minor component"
"tiny part of the surface of a manufactured object that is no longer in service"

Thermostate (Thermocoupler) contacts ?

[rjlittlefield]

Thermostat contact, yes!

Now, a thermostat for what?

(Hint: your list of hints is good, but you have overlooked one.)

--Rik