Golden hour in Longyearbyen

Evening golden hour in Longyearbyen today is none, blue hour none. Morning golden hour none. Drag the sun to see exactly how low it sits at any minute. Another city.

Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Svalbard and Jan Mayen

Saturday, November 7

Golden hournone this weekThe sun stays too high or too low here right now.

4:58 am the sun is night, 18 degrees below the horizon

Drag the sun. Arrow keys move a minute, Shift for fifteen.

LONGYEARBYEN 78.22 N 15.65 E DAY 0 MIN UTC+1

The light today

Morning blue hour
none today sun 6 to 4 degrees below the horizon
Morning golden hour
none today sun 4 degrees below to 6 above
Sunrise
—
Solar noon
11:41 am -5 degrees up, the harshest light
Sunset
—
Evening golden hour
none today sun 6 above to 4 degrees below
Evening blue hour
none today sun 4 to 6 degrees below
Dark
6:18 pm end of astronomical twilight, stars and the Milky Way
Day length
0 min

The week ahead

DayMorning goldenEvening goldenEvening blueSunset
Todaynone todaynone todaynone today—
Tomorrownone todaynone todaynone today—
Mon, Nov 9none todaynone todaynone today—
Tue, Nov 10none todaynone todaynone today—
Wed, Nov 11none todaynone todaynone today—
Thu, Nov 12none todaynone todaynone today—
Fri, Nov 13none todaynone todaynone today—

What golden hour actually is

Golden hour is not an hour and it is not a time; it is a height. When the sun sits between about 6 degrees above the horizon and 4 degrees below it, its light crosses so much air that the blue is scattered away and what reaches Longyearbyen is warm, low and soft, with long shadows that give a face or a street its shape. Near the equator it lasts twenty minutes. Near the poles it can last all afternoon. This page computes it from the sun's true position, not from a fixed hour before sunset.

Blue hour, and what comes after

Blue hour follows golden hour in the evening and precedes it in the morning: the sun 4 to 6 degrees below the horizon, the sky a deep even blue while the ground is dark and the street lights are on. It is the window for cityscapes and lit buildings. After it comes nautical and then astronomical twilight; the Dark row in the table is when the sky stops brightening at all, the earliest you can shoot the Milky Way.

Planning a shoot

Use the week table to pick the day, then drag the sun to the minute you plan to shoot: the readout gives its height and compass direction, so you know which side of your subject the light will come from and roughly where it will sit on the horizon. Arrive fifteen minutes before the window opens. The times assume a flat horizon; a ridge or a skyline to the west ends the evening light earlier than the table says.

Near Longyearbyen

What stays here

Everything on this page is arithmetic on a latitude, a longitude and the clock, done once at the edge so the times are in the page before any script runs, and again in your browser as you drag the sun or the countdown ticks. No account, no cookies, nothing typed here is stored. The only thing this page records is that a city was looked up, and which one.