Provided is a fluorescence observation apparatus (1), including: a light source (3) that irradiates a subject with reference light and excitation light； a fluorescence-image generating portion (62) that captures fluorescence from the subject to generate a fluorescence image； a reference-image generating portion (61) that captures return light of the reference light from the subject to generate a color reference image； an extraction portion (63) that extracts a fluorescence region from the fluorescence image； a motion-effect generating portion (65) that generates a frame image bringing about an effect that is visually time-varying with a variation quantity depending on a gradation value of the fluorescence region, in a region corresponding to the fluorescence region； and a synthesis portion (66) that adds the frame image to any of a plurality of color-component images constituting the reference image to synthesize a synthetic image.
