Golden Hour Calculator

The golden hour is the stretch of time around sunrise and sunset when the Sun's center sits between about -6 degrees and +6 degrees in altitude. The light is warm, soft, and low-angle, which photographers and filmmakers prize for portraits and landscapes. This calculator marks the start and end of both the morning and evening window for your date and coordinates.

The blue hour is the period when the Sun's center is between -6 degrees and -4 degrees, just before sunrise or just after sunset. The sky takes on a deep, even blue because sunlight is scattered through the atmosphere with no direct rays. In the convention used here the blue hour is the dim edge of the golden hour, so it shares the same -6 degree boundary and ends a few minutes into twilight.

It uses an approximate solar-position model based on Jean Meeus's Astronomical Algorithms. From your date it computes the Sun's declination and the equation of time, then solves for the hour angle at each target altitude. The result estimates the morning and evening crossings around solar noon.

Latitude sets how steeply the Sun rises and falls, which controls how long the golden hour lasts. Longitude shifts the clock times east or west and feeds the equation-of-time correction. The timezone converts the underlying UTC result into the local wall clock you actually read, including daylight saving time where it applies.

Near the summer solstice at high latitude the Sun can stay above -6 degrees all night, so there is no dark lower edge to the golden hour and the tool reports white nights. Near the winter solstice the Sun may never climb to -6 degrees at all, which is polar night. In both cases the affected window is shown as not occurring rather than guessed.

These times are approximations from a modeled, flat sea-level horizon. Local terrain, buildings, elevation, weather, and atmospheric refraction can shift the light you actually see. Use the result as a planning estimate and arrive early.