Sunrise & Sunset Calculator
Sunrise, sunset, solar noon, day length, civil twilight and golden hour for any point on Earth and any date. Everything is worked out in your browser with the NOAA solar position algorithm — no lookup, no server, no tracking of where you are.
Place & date
How to use this calculator
1. Set the place
Pick a city from the list, tap “Use my location” to let the browser supply your coordinates, or type a latitude and longitude straight in. Latitude is positive north of the equator, longitude positive east of Greenwich — so New York is 40.71 and −74.01.
2. Choose the date
Any date works, past or future. The sun's declination changes by up to about 0.4° a day near the equinoxes, which is why sunrise can move by three minutes from one day to the next in March and barely a few seconds in late June.
3. Check the UTC offset
All times come out on the clock you choose here. Cities set it for you from the date you entered, so a summer date in London gives UTC+1 and a winter date gives UTC+0. Typing coordinates by hand leaves the offset alone — set it yourself if you want the answer in local time rather than your own.
What the extra times mean
Civil dawn and dusk bracket the usable light either side of the sun being up: outdoor work, driving without headlights, a readable sky. Golden hour is the photographer's window while the sun is below roughly 6° of altitude. Solar noon is the moment the sun crosses your meridian — rarely 12:00, because clock time is set by a time zone that can be many degrees of longitude wide.
Sunrise & sunset FAQs
How are sunrise and sunset times calculated?
This page runs the NOAA solar position algorithm in your browser. It converts your date to a Julian day, derives the sun's geometric mean longitude and anomaly, applies the equation of centre to get the true and apparent longitude, corrects the obliquity of the ecliptic, and from those produces the sun's declination and the equation of time. Sunrise and sunset are the moments the centre of the sun sits at a 90.833° zenith angle — 0.833° below the flat horizon, once refraction and the sun's own radius are allowed for.
Why is the day slightly longer than 12 hours at the equinox?
Two reasons. Sunrise and sunset are timed from the upper edge of the sun rather than its centre, which adds about 16 arc minutes, and the atmosphere refracts light so the sun appears above the horizon while it is geometrically still about 34 arc minutes below it. Together they push the equinox day to roughly 12 hours 7 minutes at mid latitudes, and more nearer the poles.
What is civil twilight?
Civil twilight runs from the moment the centre of the sun is 6° below the horizon until sunrise, and again from sunset until the sun is 6° down. It is the period with enough natural light to read outdoors or drive without headlights. Nautical twilight (12°) and astronomical twilight (18°) are the darker stages that follow — at high latitudes in midsummer the sun never reaches those depths at all, which is what people mean by white nights.
When is golden hour?
Golden hour is the stretch when the sun sits between the horizon and about 6° of altitude, so the light is warm, low and soft. This calculator gives it as two windows: sunrise until the sun climbs past 6° in the morning, and the moment it drops back under 6° until sunset in the evening. Near the equator it genuinely is under an hour; in a Nordic summer it can stretch for hours, which is exactly why photographers go north in June.
Why does it say there is no sunrise or sunset?
Above the Arctic Circle and below the Antarctic Circle the sun can stay above the horizon for a full 24 hours (midnight sun) or never rise at all (polar night). The hour angle equation then has no solution, so rather than print a nonsense time the calculator tells you which of the two is happening and reports the sun's altitude at solar noon. Try the Reykjavík preset and step through late June to watch a day run past 21 hours.
Does this handle daylight saving time?
Yes, when you pick a city. Choosing one looks up that location's UTC offset for the exact date you entered, so a date inside daylight saving picks up the shifted offset automatically — and the year chart shows the resulting jump in the sunrise curve as a clean vertical step. Typing coordinates yourself leaves the offset box under your control.
How accurate is it?
Within about a minute for most inhabited latitudes. The algorithm assumes a sea-level horizon: altitude, hills, and unusual air temperature or pressure all shift the real moment the sun clears the skyline. Accuracy also falls off near the poles, where the sun crosses the horizon at such a shallow angle that a fraction of a degree of refraction is worth many minutes.