Daylight & Sunrise Planner
Pick a date and latitude, and see sunrise, sunset, golden hour and the safest window to start and finish your hike — so you never get caught out after dark.
Plan your daylight window
Times are local solar time (no longitude/timezone correction) — within a few minutes of clock time near the reference meridian.
Results
How is this calculated?
This tool uses the simplified NOAA solar-geometry approximation. First the solar declination for day-of-year N:
δ = 23.45° × sin( 360/365 × (284 + N) )
Then the hour angle at sunrise/sunset gives day length:
daylength = 2/15 × acos( −tan(lat) × tan(δ) ) (hours)
sunrise = 12 − daylength/2 ; sunset = 12 + daylength/2
Civil twilight is approximated as ±30 minutes around sunrise/sunset; golden hour as roughly the first/last hour of daylight. Times are local solar time — clock time also depends on your time zone and exact longitude.
Source: NOAA Solar Calculator / Earth System Research Laboratory (solar position algorithms). Estimates within ~5–10 min; verify against a local app for critical trips.