Sun Times

What it's for

Find when the Sun rises and sets for any place and date, how long the day is, when it’s highest, and when dawn and dusk begin and end: civil twilight (bright enough to be outdoors without lights), nautical and astronomical twilight (dark enough for the stars), and golden hour, the soft light photographers look for.

For example, when you’re planning a morning photo shoot or an evening walk somewhere you haven’t been, or checking how much daylight there will be on a winter trip north.

How to use it

Type a city into Place and pick it from the list, which sets the Time zone too, or type a latitude and longitude in decimal degrees such as 51.5, -0.13 or 33.87S 151.21E. Coordinates take the time zone of the nearest city in the list, which the message names, or, more than 1,000 km from any of them, a whole-hour offset from the longitude; change Time zone if it’s wrong, as near a border it can be. Choose a Date; Today sets it again. The place is remembered.

Times are shown in the chosen time zone, marked (next day) when they fall after midnight. Golden hour here is while the Sun is less than 6° above the horizon after sunrise and before sunset. The first of each month table shows the year’s sunrises, sunsets and daylight at a glance.

Example

Press Try an example for Reykjavík on 21 June 2025. Sunrise is at 02:55 and sunset at 00:04 (next day), with 21h 09m of daylight, and the twilight rows say the Sun doesn’t sink 6° below the horizon, so it never gets properly dark.

Good to know

The times use NOAA’s formulas and should be within a minute or two of published tables for places between the polar circles, less exact nearer the poles. They’re for sea level and a flat horizon: hills, buildings and height above the sea shift them by minutes. City coordinates are the centre of the city.