Can you use a mineral to test your UV flashlight? 365nm vs 395nm
How do you know whether your UV flashlight is really producing the wavelength it claims? You could use a spectrometer, of course, but there is a much simpler option that is especially appealing to mineral collectors: use a fluorescent mineral as a rough UV wavelength...
Ozone: What’s that smell, is it dangerous, and how can it be reduced?
UV lighting intended for fluorescent mineral displays should normally produce little or no ozone, so it is important to use lamps specifically designed as low-ozone or ozone-free types. A distinctive sharp smell around a UV lamp may be ozone, and if a mineral display...
Examples of some excellent Fluorescent Mineral Displays built by our members
Over time folks have posted pictures of their own fluorescent mineral displays in the Facebook FMS Fluorescent Mineral Group. These are great examples of what you can do at home with some simple cabinetry and a good UV display light.Use these for hints on building...
Collecting and Displaying Fluorescent Minerals with an Opal Emphasis
Jim Pisani, Editor for the American Opal Society, shared this presentation about collecting and displaying fluorescent minerals, with an emphasis to Opal. Slide 2 — Outline What is fluorescence? What is ultraviolet light? Where is fluorescence used? What are...
Collecting Fluorescent Minerals – The Basics, Where to Find Them, and How to Collect Them
Rock collecting is a pretty easy hobby to get into - buy a hammer, find a pile of rocks, and you're rock collecting. Fluorescent mineral collecting is a little more complicated. But folks are drawn to our hobby without even having learned how to collect white light...
Fluorescent Mineral Photography
Fluorescent mineral photography is a challenge. People (and cameras) usually take pictures of well-lit scenes and rarely have to worry about overexposing an image. When photographing fluorescent minerals the game is changed dramatically. The camera now has to capture...
Fluorescence in Minerals
White light mineral displays are always well lit with bright lights, offering a beautiful range of colors that makes them attractive to collectors. But some minerals have a unique property - a hidden rainbow of color that is only revealed using special ultraviolet...
Biofluorescence of the Monarch Butterfly
Originally posted on Nature's Rainbows in 2018 by Chris Clemens. As a biologist, my interest in entomology predates my fascination with fluorescent minerals by decades, so it was only natural that when my wife Kristine and I found some monarch butterfly eggs last...
The Mineralogy of Franklin and Ogdensburg, New Jersey By Vandall T. King
"The Mineralogy of Franklin and Ogdensburg, New Jersey" by Vandall T. King (Editor) et al. is a comprehensive three-volume book series represents the definitive modern compendium of the mineralogy, geology, and history of the Franklin and Sterling Hill (Ogdensburg)...
Photographing Esperite using a Magenta Filter
Esperite is one of the most difficult minerals to photograph. The bright yellow of Esperite is very close to the bright green fluorescence of Willemite. The two together general blow out the exposure on most every camera. Most of the time, the esperite tends to look...