Martin Oeggerli

The 'seen and unseen' of our world

Martin Oeggerli is a micronaut, exploring inner space. This Swiss  scientific photographer makes spectacular photos of the microcosm. His camera is a scanning electron microscope with which he produces high-resolution images in which miniscule details are enlarged up to 500,000:1. Oeggerli then painstakingly adjusts and colors these images to enhance their meaning. This gives rise to magical images of a hidden world. “I want to show people just how many beautiful things are invisible to the naked eye,” says Oeggerli, who obtained his MSc degree from the University of Basel in 2001, before obtaining his PhD in the field of cancer research.

Since 2006, he has participated in a project supported  by the Swiss National Foundation, working as a researcher at the university hospital in Basel and as an advisor to a laboratory for scanning electron microscopy.

Micronaut’s photos of the microcosm have frequently graced the covers of leading magazines and scientific journals, and were published by National Geographic, GEO, Focus, Nature, and Cell. His photos have won various awards and in 2009 Micronaut was voted German Scientific Photographer of the Year for a series of microscopic illustrations titled “Evolution in Flowering Plants”.