Sunrise Sunset Calculator

What this tool does

Sunrise Sunset Calculator estimates sunrise, sunset, solar noon and day length for any given date and latitude/longitude using the standard NOAA solar position approximation, accurate to within a few minutes for most locations and dates. It also correctly reports midnight sun and polar night conditions near the poles.

Sunrise and sunset times depend on a genuinely three-dimensional calculation: the date determines the sun’s declination, the latitude determines how long the sun stays above the horizon that day, and the longitude shifts exactly when solar noon occurs in UTC. Doing that by hand, or guessing from a rough seasonal rule, gets inaccurate fast outside the tropics.

This calculator applies the standard NOAA solar position approximation, the same formula family behind most sunrise/sunset tables, to compute sunrise, sunset, solar noon and total day length in UTC for any date and latitude/longitude pair. Inside the Arctic or Antarctic circle near the solstices, it correctly reports midnight sun (the sun never sets) or polar night (the sun never rises) instead of returning a meaningless time.

How to use Sunrise Sunset Calculator

1. Enter the Date you want sun times for.
2. Enter the Latitude (positive for north, negative for south).
3. Enter the Longitude (positive for east, negative for west).
4. Read Sunrise and Sunset in UTC.
5. Check Day length and Solar noon for additional context.
6. Convert the UTC times to local time using your location’s offset, or a time zone converter, if you need a local-time answer.

Tips for better results

• All results are in UTC; add your location’s UTC offset (including any daylight saving adjustment) to get local clock times.
• This formula does not account for elevation or nearby mountains/buildings blocking the horizon, both of which shift real observed sunrise/sunset times by a few minutes.
• Near the Arctic or Antarctic circle around the solstices, don’t be surprised to see "midnight sun" or "polar night" instead of specific times; that is the genuinely correct behaviour at those latitudes and dates, not an error.
• For most populated latitudes and dates, this approximation is accurate to within a few minutes of a precise ephemeris-based calculation, which is good enough for almost any practical use.

Common use cases

• Planning an outdoor activity, photography session or event around sunrise or sunset.
• Estimating day length at a specific latitude for agricultural, astronomical or travel planning purposes.
• Checking whether a far-northern or far-southern location experiences midnight sun or polar night on a specific date.
• Finding solar noon at a location for solar panel orientation or shadow-related planning.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Forgetting that results are in UTC and using them directly as if they were local time without adjusting for the location’s time zone offset.
• Expecting a specific sunrise/sunset time inside the polar circles near the solstices, where the sun genuinely does not rise or set that day.
• Treating this as precise enough for professional astronomical or navigational use; it is a good general-purpose approximation, not an ephemeris-grade calculation.