Provided is a fluorescence observation apparatus including an illumination unit that irradiates an object with illumination light and excitation light a fluorescence-image acquisition unit that captures an image of the fluorescence generated by the object, thereby acquiring a fluorescence image a return-light-image acquisition unit that captures an image of the return light returning from the object, thereby acquiring a return-light image a light-distribution-characteristics-information storage unit that stores information with regard to the light distribution characteristics of optical systems an image correcting unit that corrects at least one of the fluorescence image and the return-light image using the information so that the light distribution characteristics contained in the fluorescence image and the return-light image are made equal to each other and an image normalizing unit that normalizes the fluorescence image on the basis of the return-light image, using the corrected fluorescence image and return-light image.
