I would be very wary of using most of the fluorescent dyes in a home setting. None of the acridine orange family is really safe to use without gloves and proper precautions. You don't want to track mutagenic chemicals all over your house. And anyone who works with these dyes in a lab will tell you, that if you try measuring out say Fluorescein, you'll find it ALL over the lab in little spots later, unless you double-glove, and immediately discard the outer pair of gloves. The fluorescein dyes and their relatives used in bright-field (e.g. eosin Y, phloxine B and other fluorones) are fairly safe to use protein stains. So is Calcofluor, it specifically stains cellulose and chitin. If you are lucky enough to get a sample, or want to purchase them, you can find fluorescently labeled antibodies to various cellular components too (they will not be cheap, and you will have to know the correct protocols to employ them). You should preferably confine your use to an absorbent-towel-covered workbench so you don't track them all over and of course wear gloves and safety glasses. I can't stress that enough.
Here are some examples of epiflorescence microscopy using Eosin Y and Ploxine B in just regular histological sections.
http://photomacrography.net/forum/viewt ... highlight=
http://photomacrography.net/forum/viewt ... highlight=
Although there are very useful fluorochromes out there for nucleic acid staining and 100's of other histochemical fluorescent methods, its not a good idea to use them outside of a laboratory setting unless you have the training and experience to use them safely.
That being said, you can get plenty of good pictures using natural autofluorescence and simple fluorone dyes.
The image of the rotting leaf in the blog is superb. What dyes did you use?
David
