Golden Hour & Blue Hour Calculator
Get exact golden hour and blue hour times for any location and date. Choose from city presets or enter custom coordinates. Times in UTC or your device time zone. Nothing uploaded.
Location & Date
Times are calculated in UTC. Choose your device time zone to see them in local time.
Photo Light Windows
Full light schedule
Learn more: golden hour, blue hour and sun position
The windows are set by the sun's angle
The calculator works out the sun's declination and the equation of time for your date, then finds the hour angle at which the sun reaches a chosen altitude. Sunrise and sunset use -0.833 degrees, which allows for atmospheric refraction lifting the visible sun slightly above its true position.
Golden hour is the time from sunrise until the sun is 6 degrees above the horizon, and the matching window before sunset. Blue hour is the time between civil twilight, with the sun at -6 degrees, and sunrise, and the matching window after sunset. Other sources use different angles, so a window from another tool may not match.
The length depends on latitude and season
Because the windows are defined by angle, their length changes with where you are. At the equator on the March equinox the sun climbs from sunrise to 6 degrees in about 28 minutes, and the morning blue hour lasts about 20.
The sun rises at a shallower angle further from the equator, so the windows stretch. In London the morning golden hour is about 54 minutes on 21 June and 62 minutes on 21 December. In Oslo on 21 June it is about 80 minutes, and at 65 degrees north that day it is over two hours. Where the sun never sets or never rises, the calculator shows a polar day or night message.
UTC and local time
Times are calculated in UTC. You can switch the display to your device's time zone, which is right when you are at the location, or add the offset for the place yourself.
FAQ
Why does the calculator need latitude and longitude?
Latitude sets how high the sun climbs and how fast it changes altitude. Longitude shifts solar noon within the day. A city preset just fills in its coordinates before running the same calculation.
Can golden hour happen twice in a day?
Yes. The calculator shows a morning window after sunrise and an evening window before sunset, because the sun crosses the same altitude going up and going down.
What happens near the poles in summer?
If the sun never drops to -0.833 degrees, there is no sunset that day, so the calculator shows no result for it. That is the midnight sun, not an error.