Where exactly will the sun set tonight?
Not just "west". Pick a place and a date and get the compass bearing of sunset, the time, when golden hour begins, and how far that point swings across your horizon during the year.
- Sunset
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- Golden hour starts
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- Civil dusk
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- Sunrise bearing
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The shaded arc is every direction the sun sets in over a year at this latitude. Bearings are from true north, for a flat sea-level horizon.
How far it swings where you are
| Date | Sunset bearing | From due west |
|---|
A bearing is a number. A view is a place.
This page is from the team behind Asterfold: Sunset Planner for iPhone. This calculator tells you the direction. According to its App Store listing, Asterfold lets you:
- Save the exact spot you watch from and see the sunset against that view on a first-person horizon
- Pick your lens, from 14 mm to 200 mm, and see whether the sun lands inside the frame
- Find the dates this year when the sun sets inside your frame
- Scrub through the day for altitude, bearing and shadow length, calculated on the phone so it works offline
- Record what the sky actually did afterwards
Using the bearing outdoors
Set your compass to true north. On an iPhone that is in Settings, Apps, Compass. A magnetic reading can be off by several degrees, which is enough to put the sun behind the wrong building.
Stand where you plan to watch from. Turn until the compass reads the bearing. Whatever is on the horizon in front of you is where the sun will go down on a flat horizon.
Allow for what is in the way. A ridge or a row of houses hides the sun before the listed time, and the sun is still moving right (in the northern hemisphere) as it drops. If your skyline is high, expect the sun to disappear earlier and a little to the left of the bearing.
Come back in a month. Near the equinoxes the sunset point moves fastest, more than half a degree a day at mid latitudes. Near the solstices it barely moves for weeks.
Questions
Does the sun always set in the west?
Only roughly. The sun sets due west, a bearing of 270 degrees, on just two days a year, around the March and September equinoxes. In the northern hemisphere it sets north of west in summer and south of west in winter. The swing grows with latitude: about 23 degrees either side at the equator, about 32 degrees at 40 degrees north, and more than 40 degrees at 52 degrees north.
What is a sunset bearing or azimuth?
It is the compass direction of the point on the horizon where the sun goes down, measured in degrees clockwise from true north. North is 0, east is 90, south is 180 and west is 270. A sunset bearing of 245 degrees is 25 degrees to the left of due west as you face it.
Why does my phone compass not match the bearing?
This calculator gives bearings from true north. A magnetic compass points to magnetic north, which can differ by several degrees and in some places by more than ten. Set your phone's compass to true north, or allow for your local magnetic declination.
How accurate is this calculator?
It uses the standard solar position equations published by NOAA and assumes a flat, sea-level horizon. For most places the time is within about a minute and the bearing within a fraction of a degree. Hills, buildings and your own height above the horizon change when and where you actually lose sight of the sun.
Do you store my location?
No. If you choose Use my location, the coordinates stay in this page and the calculation runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server.
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