When are golden hour and blue hour where you are?
Choose a UK place, press Use my location or type coordinates, then pick a date. You get morning and evening golden hour, blue hour, civil twilight, sunrise, sunset and their compass directions.
How the tool works
The times come from the NOAA solar position method. The page works out the sun’s height above the horizon for every minute of the local day and finds when it crosses each angle. Sunrise and sunset use -0.833 degrees, which allows for the sun’s size and the bending of light by the air. On a flat horizon the result is good to about a minute.
Golden hour and blue hour have no official definition. This page uses the sun between -4 and +6 degrees for golden hour and between -6 and -4 degrees for blue hour, which is a common photographer’s rule of thumb. Civil twilight runs from -6 degrees to sunrise in the morning and from sunset to -6 degrees in the evening. Where the sun never reaches an angle on that date, the row says none. In polar day or polar night the page says so instead of showing times.
Times are shown in your device’s time zone, so the clock change is already included. If you type coordinates for a place in a different time zone, the times will be in your own local time. The sunrise and sunset directions are compass bearings from true north, which helps you plan where to stand. Hills, trees and buildings will cut your real light short, so arrive early.
Questions
How long is golden hour?
With the sun between -4 and +6 degrees, it lasts from about 40 minutes to over two hours depending on latitude and season. It is shorter near the equinoxes in the UK than in midsummer and longer further north.
What is blue hour?
It is the twilight period just before sunrise and after sunset when the sky turns deep blue. This page takes it as the sun between -6 and -4 degrees.
Does Use my location send my position anywhere?
No. The browser gives the page your coordinates and the sums are done on your device. You can choose a place or type coordinates instead.
More photography tools: Sunrise and sunset calculator, Moon phase and Milky Way planner, Landscape photography weather checklist