Is it dark yet? is a free, real-time tool that tells you instantly whether it is genuinely dark outside at your location. Open the page and allow location access, or search for any city worldwide, and the app calculates the sun's current position to answer the question with a simple “Yes,” “Almost,” or “Not yet.” Alongside the answer, you get live sunrise and sunset times, civil dawn and civil dusk times, a real-time sky simulation, a moon phase indicator, and darkness status for 16 major world cities.
When you visit the page your browser prompts for location permission. Grant it and the app uses your GPS coordinates to run the solar calculation immediately. If you decline or are on a device without geolocation, you can search for any city by name. The main display shows a large status word — Yes, Almost, or Not yet — with a live countdown to the next event such as sunset or sunrise. Below that, cards display exact sunrise, sunset, civil dawn, and civil dusk times, the sun's current altitude and azimuth, a day-progress bar, and the current moon phase.
Twilight is the period of partial light after the sun dips below the horizon but before the sky goes fully dark. Astronomers divide it into three phases based on how far the sun sits beneath the horizon, measured as its “altitude” in degrees.
Civil twilight lasts from sunset until the sun's center reaches 6 degrees below the horizon, and again from that point until sunrise in the morning. During civil twilight there is still enough natural light for most outdoor activities without artificial lighting. The sky takes on deep blue and orange tones, and streetlights begin to switch on. The app considers it “almost dark” during this phase and “dark” only after civil twilight ends.
Nautical twilight runs from 6 to 12 degrees below the horizon. The horizon is still visible at sea level, which historically allowed sailors to take star sights for navigation, hence the name. To the casual observer the sky appears quite dark, though a faint glow remains near the western horizon after sunset.
Astronomical twilight spans 12 to 18 degrees below the horizon. The sky is dark enough for most purposes, but a very faint residual glow can still interfere with deep-sky astrophotography. Once the sun passes 18 degrees below the horizon, astronomical twilight ends and the sky reaches maximum darkness — the condition the app labels as fully dark.
Sunset is the instant the upper edge of the sun disappears below the horizon. At that moment the sun's center is only about 0.3 degrees below the horizon, and the sky is still bright with civil twilight. It takes several more minutes — longer at higher latitudes — for the sun to sink to 6 degrees and end civil twilight. Only then is it genuinely dark by the standard the app uses. So “the sun has set” and “it is dark” describe two different points in time, and the gap between them varies by latitude, season, and your position within your time zone.
The app computes solar position using well-established astronomical algorithms that model the Earth's orbit, axial tilt, and rotation. The inputs are your latitude, your longitude, and the current date and time. From these the algorithm derives the sun's altitude (its angle above or below the horizon) and azimuth (its compass direction) at any given instant. Sunrise is the moment altitude crosses zero going upward; sunset is the same crossing going downward. Civil dawn and civil dusk correspond to the altitude crossing 6 degrees below the horizon. Because the calculation is based on exact coordinates rather than a time-zone average, the results are precise to the minute for your specific location.
The app displays the current moon phase alongside its illumination percentage — the fraction of the moon's visible face lit by the sun. Phases progress from new moon through waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, and waning crescent before returning to new. The calculation uses the same solar-position library to determine the angular separation between the sun and moon as seen from Earth, which determines how much of the lunar surface appears illuminated to you right now.
Want to know exactly when the light turns golden for photography? The companion Golden Hour Tracker page shows precise golden hour and blue hour start and end times for your location, along with how long each window lasts. Golden hour is when the sun sits between −4° and +6° of elevation — the warm, soft light photographers prize. Blue hour is the deep twilight between −6° and −4°, when the sky turns saturated blue with no direct sunlight.