How to Use the Sun Times Tool

How-to · 3-minute read

The Sun Times tool tells you exactly when the sun rises, peaks and sets for any place, and runs entirely offline. Here is how to use it.

Choose a location

Search for a city and pick it from the list, or tap Use my location. The tool only converts the place name into coordinates — every sun-time after that is computed locally. Results are shown in the chosen location's local time, so "sunset in Tokyo" reads in Tokyo time even if you are elsewhere.

Read your sun times and the seasons

You get sunrise, sunset, solar noon, first and last light, morning and evening golden hour, and total day length for today. Lower down, the tool lists this year's solstices and equinoxes with exact dates and times. Near the poles it will tell you when there is no sunrise or sunset at all (midnight sun or polar night).

First light, last light and golden hour

First and last light are the civil-twilight boundaries — the sun sits about 6 degrees below the horizon, still bright enough to move around without artificial light. Golden hour sits on the other side of the horizon, with the sun up but below roughly the same angle. Day length is simply sunset minus sunrise, and at mid-latitudes it swings by more than eight hours between the June and December solstices.

Why the times shift each day

Sunrise and sunset move fastest around the equinoxes and slow almost to a standstill near the solstices, which is where the word solstice ("sun stands still") comes from. Solar noon also drifts by up to about a quarter of an hour across the year, because Earth's orbit is elliptical rather than circular. The tool recomputes all of it for the current date every time you open it.

Next: Planning golden-hour photography → Or read solstice vs equinox.