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Sun Position & Solar Times

Compute the sun's altitude and azimuth for any place and instant, plus the day's sunrise, sunset, solar noon, golden & blue hours, and civil / nautical / astronomical twilight times. Uses NOAA's solar position algorithm — accurate to about one arc-minute for the next few centuries. Calculations run in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.

Location & time

Quick locations:

Sun position at the chosen instant

sun horizon azimuth measured clockwise from due north; altitude from horizon

Solar events for this date

EventLocal timeUTCSun altitude

Notes

Azimuth is the compass bearing of the sun — 0° due north, 90° east, 180° south, 270° west. Altitude (or elevation) is the angle above the local horizon; negative means the sun is below it. The horizon dip for elevation is small but non-zero, e.g. about 0.06° at sea level for atmospheric refraction (≈34 arc-minutes is used here, matching the USNO definition of sunrise). At high latitudes inside the polar circles, some events have no time on certain dates — "—" means the sun never crosses that altitude that day. Golden hour is when the sun is between −4° and +6°, producing warm, soft light photographers love. Blue hour is when the sun is between −6° and −4°, the brief deep-blue interval before sunrise and after sunset.