Conditions on this page are recalculated from the latest forecast every time it is opened, for the current date in the location's own time zone.
This page calculates today's morning and evening golden hour for a location you choose, and shows both windows in that location's own local time. Golden hour is defined here by solar elevation rather than by a fixed number of minutes around sunrise: the window runs while the centre of the Sun sits between four degrees below the horizon and six degrees above it. The morning window is the rising crossing of that band and the evening window is the setting crossing, so the two are calculated separately rather than mirrored. Sunrise and sunset use the standard minus 0.833 degree elevation, which accounts for atmospheric refraction and the radius of the solar disc. Because the answer depends on latitude, longitude and the local calendar date, no single clock time can be correct for every visitor, so the exact times appear once you select a location — either with your device location, which is optional and only requested when you ask for it, or by searching for any city. Civil times are converted using the location's real IANA timezone, so daylight saving and half-hour offsets are handled correctly, and the date used is the local date there rather than the date on your device. Duration varies far more than the name suggests: near the equator each window can pass in under half an hour, while at high latitude it stretches well beyond an hour. Close to the poles the normal pattern breaks down, and those days are reported explicitly — no standard window, continuous low-angle light, or polar night — instead of an invented start and end time. Displayed times are astronomical estimates of light angle; cloud, haze and the local horizon decide what you actually see.
Scores are capped by dealbreakers — heavy rain, dangerous wind, thick fog or hazardous UV pull a day down no matter how pleasant the rest of the numbers look. Forecast data is Open-Meteo; solar and lunar values are computed for this location's own coordinates and time zone. Full details on the methodology page.