About

Golden Hour Clock is a free planning tool for photographers. It gives the golden hour and blue hour times for a place, the best months for light there, and a day by day table for any month.

How the times are computed

Every time on this site is computed from the sun's position for the exact coordinates of the place, using the SunCalc solar position library. Nothing is fetched from a weather service, and no times are guessed.

Golden hour is the sun between −4° and +6° of elevation. Blue hour is between −6° and −4°. Because these are real elevation bands, the length of each window changes with latitude and season, which is the point: in Berlin the evening golden hour runs about 66 minutes in autumn but around 86 minutes at midsummer.

Where the place data comes from

Place names, coordinates, population and timezone come from GeoNames, an open geographical database. The site keeps the largest cities of each country so that coverage is worldwide rather than concentrated in a few regions.

How the "best months" are chosen

A month is marked as a good month for light when it has both a long golden hour and a full day of daylight. A low winter sun can give a long twilight, but the days are short and dim, so those months are not counted as good light.

Is it free?

Yes. No account is needed and there is nothing to install. See the privacy page for what little the site does with your visit.