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An exquisite specimen of perfectly formed, glassy green apatite crystals. Under all UV wavelengths, they glow a bright yellow and some zoning can also be seen. The Panasqueira Mine is a locality famous for the quality of apatite crystals it produces.
365nm UV light is often called "blacklight". Before the advent of longwave UV LEDs, blacklight fluorescent tubes, (the kinds used in hippie days to light up psychedelic posters) were the standard longwave UV light for our hobby. They were not very powerful but they did light a large area.
Enter 365nm UV LEDs
First, an animation showing the difference between the UV flashlight we recommend (365nm filtered UV flashlight) versus unfiltered 395nm UV flashlights we see many folks carrying around at shows. So. much. visible purple light. We selected a bunch of rocks as a demonstration. Took pictures of them under his flashlight without the filter and then with the filter.
A major component of rock collecting (for us) is simply getting out in nature. A buddy dragged us out to a very remote area here in middle Tennessee to hunt for fluorescent green agate. Since we consider ourselves pure "Glow Hounds" we weren't anticipating any glow rocks, just the beauty of the area, but we brought our UV lights anyway.
