Golden hour is the window of soft, warm light that photographers live for. It happens twice a day — once just after sunrise and again just before sunset — when the sun is low enough that its light passes through a thick slice of Earth's atmosphere. The shorter blue wavelengths scatter away, leaving the warm golds, ambers, and reds that give skin a flattering glow and landscapes a rich, dimensional quality. This page calculates the exact start and end times for both golden hour windows at your location, so you never miss the light.
Golden hour is technically defined as the period when the sun sits between roughly −4° and +6° of elevation. The lower bound (−4°) marks the transition from blue hour, and the upper bound (+6°) is where the light becomes too harsh and directional for the characteristic golden look. In the morning, golden hour begins as the sun climbs through −4° and ends when it reaches +6° above the horizon. In the evening, the sequence reverses: golden hour starts when the sun drops to +6° and ends when it reaches −4°. The exact timing depends on your latitude, longitude, date, and the surrounding terrain — a hill or building on the horizon can shorten the practical window.
Blue hour is the brief period of deep blue twilight that brackets golden hour, occurring when the sun is between −6° and −4° below the horizon. The sun is too low to cast direct light, but the atmosphere still catches its rays and scatters them into an even, saturated blue across the sky. Photographers value blue hour for cityscapes and architecture: the sky has rich color and texture, and artificial lights — streetlamps, building windows, neon signs — turn on and balance naturally against the twilight sky. The window is short, often just 20 to 30 minutes, so knowing the exact times for your location is essential for planning a shoot.
The duration of golden hour and blue hour depends almost entirely on how steeply the sun rises or sets at your location, which in turn depends on latitude and season. Near the equator the sun drops almost vertically below the horizon, so it passes through the golden hour band quickly — often in 30 to 40 minutes. At mid-latitudes the angle is shallower, stretching the window to an hour or more. Near the poles the sun can skim along the horizon for hours, creating golden hour conditions that last far longer — or, during certain times of year, never end at all.
In winter the sun stays lower in the sky throughout the day, particularly at higher latitudes. Because the sun's path is more shallow relative to the horizon, it takes longer to cross the −4° to +6° elevation band that defines golden hour. The same effect makes blue hour longer — the sun lingers in the −6° to −4° range instead of slicing through it. Near the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, the sun may not rise high enough to escape golden hour conditions at all during winter, or may not dip far enough below the horizon to reach true darkness during summer. This is why photographers in Nordic countries report golden hours that last for hours rather than minutes, while those near the equator must work quickly within a compact 30-minute window.
This tool uses the same solar position algorithms as the main Is it dark yet? darkness tracker. It detects your GPS coordinates (or lets you search for any city) and calculates the exact moments the sun crosses the −6°, −4°, and +6° elevation thresholds for today's date at your latitude and longitude. The morning and evening golden hour and blue hour windows are displayed with start times, end times, and total duration so you can plan your shoot down to the minute.