Golden Hour Calculator for Writers
When did the light turn amber over your heroine’s village, and how long until full dark? Pick a place and a date to get sunrise, sunset, golden hour, blue hour and every stage of twilight, in that place’s own clock time.
Quick places
When does light first reach your heroine’s window? Pick a place and date.
What golden hour is
Golden hour is the stretch just after sunrise and just before sunset when the sun sits low. Its light travels through more air, so it arrives warm, soft and sideways: long shadows, glowing faces, windows that flare orange. This tool estimates it as the first hour after sunrise and the last hour before sunset; far from the equator it can last longer.
Blue hour and the three twilights
After sunset the sky passes through civil, nautical and astronomical twilight. Civil twilight is the “blue hour”: no direct sun, but enough light to read outdoors and see colors. By the end of nautical twilight the horizon is hard to make out at sea, and after astronomical twilight the sky is fully dark and the faintest stars appear. In the morning the same stages run in reverse.
Using it in your scenes
- Check how long a winter day really is before you schedule a journey: London gets under eight hours of daylight in December.
- A secret meeting “at dusk” has a window: civil twilight tells you how long the last light lasts.
- Far north or south, the sun may not rise or set at all; the tool tells you when that happens.
- Times are shown in the place’s own time zone, daylight saving included, or in UTC if you prefer.