Our golden-hour convention.
This tool shows sunrise to the Sun reaching +6° in the morning, and +6° down to sunset in the evening. Photographers use different definitions, so the label is an approximate planning window.
Blue hour is a range.
Our blue-hour window uses solar altitude from −8° to −4° in the morning, and −4° to −8° in the evening. Clouds, terrain, and visibility change the actual scene.
Is golden hour at sunrise or sunset?
Both. There is a morning golden hour that begins at sunrise and ends when the Sun climbs to +6°, and an evening golden hour that begins when the Sun sinks to +6° and ends at sunset. The evening blue hour follows sunset; the morning blue hour comes before sunrise. The sunrise vs sunset page compares the two ends of the day.
How long golden hour lasts
The window is rarely an hour. Its length depends on how quickly the Sun moves through the 6° band, which depends on latitude and season. Near the equator the Sun climbs steeply and the window is short. At high latitudes in summer the Sun’s path is shallow and the window stretches out; close to the polar circles the Sun may never reach +6°, or never drop below it, and the tool reports Unavailable rather than guessing.
Reading the result
Morning golden ends is the instant the Sun reaches +6° after sunrise. Evening golden starts is the instant it falls back to +6° before sunset. The four blue labels mark the −8° and −4° crossings on each side of the day. All eight times use the selected place’s time zone and are rounded to the nearest minute. The methodology page lists the assumptions behind them.