Golden Hour

How to use it

1. Pick a date (today by default) and type the latitude and longitude of your location.
2. The table fills in immediately: morning blue hour, golden hour, sunrise, solar noon, sunset, evening golden hour and blue hour, plus day length.
3. All times are UTC — convert to your local time zone before planning.
4. The summary line shows the day length and both golden hour windows.

Common use cases

• Planning a shoot — arrive before the golden hour window opens.
• Travel planning — check daylight length for a destination and date.
• Choosing call times — find when the light is softest for portraits.
• Learning solar geometry — see how latitude pushes sunrise and sunset apart.

Why it stays private

The whole calculation is a closed-form solar position model running on the numbers you type. No location is looked up, stored or sent anywhere, and the tool works offline.

FAQ

Q: How accurate is it? A: It uses the NOAA solar position approximation, good to roughly a minute for most latitudes and dates, with the standard 0.833-degree horizon refraction correction. Local terrain and weather still shift the real light.

Q: Why are the times in UTC? A: The algorithm works in UTC, and a location's time zone is a political choice rather than a coordinate. Convert with your local offset before planning.

Q: What happens above the Arctic Circle? A: On days with no sunrise or sunset the summary says polar day or polar night — the sun never crosses the horizon.

Q: How are golden and blue hour defined here? A: Golden hour is the sun within 6 degrees above the horizon; blue hour is the sun about 4 to 6 degrees below it, around civil twilight.