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When is golden hour today?
Choose a place and a date. You get the start and end of golden hour and blue hour, morning and evening, worked out from where the sun actually is rather than a flat “hour before sunset”.
Evening
Morning
The time is half of it. The other half is where to point.
We make Asterfold, a sunset planner for iPhone. It draws the sun’s real path across a sky dome for any place and date, coloured by golden hour, blue hour and twilight, and shows the bearing where the sun will set from the exact spot you stand.
- Scrub through the day for the sun’s altitude, bearing and shadow length.
- Save your viewpoints and turn toward the shot on a first-person horizon.
- Calculated on your iPhone, so it works offline.
- No account and no analytics. Asterfold Plus is optional.
What counts as golden hour here
| Golden hour | Sun between 6° above and 4° below the horizon. Light is low, warm and soft, and shadows are long. |
|---|---|
| Blue hour | Sun between 4° and 6° below the horizon. The sky is deep blue and city lights balance with it. |
| Sunrise and sunset | The moment the sun’s upper edge is on the horizon, allowing for the bending of light by the atmosphere (centre of the sun 0.833° below). |
These angle bands are the convention most photographers’ tools use. There’s no official definition, so other calculators may differ by a few minutes.
Why it isn’t an hour
How long the sun takes to pass through those angles depends on how steeply it sets. Near the equator it drops almost straight down and golden hour can be over in forty minutes. At high latitudes in summer it skims the horizon and the warm light can last for hours. In midwinter in the far north the sun may never climb above 6°, so the whole short day is golden.
How accurate is it
The times come from a standard low-precision solar position formula and are usually within a minute or two for a flat, sea-level horizon. Hills, buildings and haze change what you actually see: a ridge to the west ends your direct light early. Times are shown in the place’s own time zone for listed cities, and in your device’s time zone for “my location” or typed coordinates.
To find where on the horizon the sun goes down, use the sunset direction calculator.
Questions people ask
What time is golden hour?
It changes daily and by location. In the evening it begins when the sun drops to about 6 degrees above the horizon and ends when it is about 4 degrees below, shortly after sunset. The calculator shows both ends for your place and date.
How long does golden hour last?
Often less than an hour near the equator and much longer at high latitudes, especially in summer. The duration is shown beside each time range.
What is blue hour?
The short period when the sun is roughly 4 to 6 degrees below the horizon and the sky turns deep blue. It comes just after evening golden hour and just before morning golden hour.
Does it use my location?
Only if you press Use my location, and the coordinates stay in your browser. Nothing is sent to us. You can pick a city or type coordinates instead.
Related
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- Why your sunset photos look washed outSix reasons phone sunset photos come out flat, most common first, with the fix for each. Plus a free golden-hour countdown for wherever you are.