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Golden Hour Calculator

Sunrise, sunset, golden hour and blue hour for any location and date.

Planning aid only — not certified flight-planning software or airspace clearance. Always verify results against your own aircraft's manual and check current regulations before flying. Full disclaimer.

Location

What golden hour and blue hour mean

Golden hour is the period shortly after sunrise and shortly before sunset when sunlight is soft and warm-toned — a favorite for aerial photography and video. Blue hour is the cooler, softer light in twilight, just before sunrise and just after sunset.

How it works

This tool uses the same real astronomical calculation (via the SunCalc library) that powers UAV Meteo's own Daylight card — sunrise, sunset, and every twilight boundary, computed for your exact location and date rather than a rough regional estimate.

Limitations

Near the summer/winter solstice at high latitudes, some or all of these boundaries genuinely don't occur on a given date (midnight sun or polar night) — shown as a dash rather than a guessed time. Local weather (cloud cover) isn't factored in — check UAV Meteo's Flight Window for that.

Sunrise/sunset/golden hour times depend on your exact latitude and longitude, not just which time zone you're in — two cities in the same time zone can have meaningfully different golden hour times.

No — this is pure astronomical timing. Check current cloud cover and conditions with UAV Meteo's Flight Window or home page.

Planning a shoot around this?
Check wind, cloud cover and the full flying picture for your exact time window with Flight Window.
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