About Today's Sun Times
todaysuntimes.com is a free solar data utility that provides accurate sunrise, sunset, golden hour, and twilight times for thousands of cities across the United States.
Who's Behind This Site
Today's Sun Times is an independent project built and maintained by Gabriel, a web developer with a long-running interest in solar timing and the practical ways daylight shapes daily life — commutes, photography, outdoor plans, sleep. The site started as a personal tool for looking up golden hour and grew into a solar reference covering 1,847 larger US cities plus nationwide tools for more than 15,000 places.
The guides connect solar calculations with practical daylight planning, and the calculator output is checked against an independent astronomy engine. If you spot an error — in a number, a definition, or an explanation — please report it; corrections are reviewed and credited.
Editorial Standards
- Solar figures are computed from each city's center coordinates using published astronomical algorithms — never copied or rounded from another website.
- Theoretical values are always labeled as such. Clear-sky solar-energy figures, for example, are explicitly framed as upper bounds, not forecasts.
- Articles avoid invented statistics. Where science is unsettled (like solunar feeding theories), we say so.
- Sunrise and sunset times are astronomical calculations, not legal references. For regulated activities such as hunting hours, always consult your state's official publications.
How It Works
Date-specific solar data is calculated directly in your browser with the open-source SunCalc library. When you visit a city page, the tool uses city-center latitude, longitude, local timezone, and the city's current calendar date. Results are rounded to the nearest minute because local horizon and atmospheric uncertainty make seconds misleading.
Your browser calculates times for today's date when you visit and for any date you select. Today's view updates automatically at local midnight. The initial HTML contains a dated snapshot; visitors without JavaScript see that date. Interactive planning works without a solar-data API or daily site rebuilds.
What We Calculate
- Sunrise & Sunset — The calculated time the sun crosses a standard, unobstructed horizon.
- Solar Noon — When the sun reaches its highest point in the sky.
- Golden Hour — Morning and evening warm-light windows, from sunrise to 6° altitude and from 6° altitude to sunset.
- Blue Hour — The photographic window with the Sun 4–6° below the horizon, matching the calculator and our guides.
- Civil Twilight — Sun 0–6° below the horizon; enough light for outdoor activities.
- Nautical Twilight — Sun 6–12° below; the horizon is still visible at sea.
- Astronomical Twilight — Sun 12–18° below; sky glow fades for stargazing.
- Sun Position — Real-time altitude and azimuth of the sun.
- Daylight Duration — Total hours and minutes of sunlight.
Accuracy
Solar event times are accurate to within 1–2 minutes for most locations. Minor variations can occur due to atmospheric refraction, local elevation, and the difference between a city's center coordinates and your exact location. Times are displayed in the city's local timezone.
Methods and Sources
- SunCalc for solar position and event calculations.
- U.S. Naval Observatory for rise, set, and twilight definitions.
- SimpleMaps US Cities Database for place names, city-center coordinates, timezones, populations, and ZIP codes, under its applicable license.
- Our accuracy methodology and independent comparison details.
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