Sun Path Calculator (Full-Day Trajectory)

About this tool

The sun does not just sit at one place in the sky — it traces an arc that depends on the date and the observer's latitude. This calculator extends the single-instant Sun Position tool to the entire day: enter a latitude, longitude, and date, and the planner walks through every fifteen minutes from local midnight to midnight, computing the sun's elevation above the horizon and its azimuth (compass bearing) at each step, and then summarising the key events of the day — sunrise (the moment the upper limb of the sun appears at the horizon, with refraction), solar noon (the moment the sun crosses the meridian and reaches its highest elevation), sunset, and the day-length in hours and minutes. The underlying mathematics is the standard NOAA solar position algorithm, the same routine used by the NOAA Solar Calculator and validated by observatories — accurate to about ±0.1° in azimuth and elevation, which is far tighter than the ~0.5° angular diameter of the sun itself. The sunrise/sunset solver uses the conventional −0.833° geometric elevation criterion (which folds in the half-degree atmospheric refraction at the horizon plus the half-diameter of the disk), so the times match the published civil sunrise/sunset values within a minute or two. The tool is useful for planning solar-panel exposure across the year, picking a time-window for outdoor photography that catches the golden hour (when elevation is roughly between zero and twelve degrees), checking how much sun a garden plot will get on the shortest day of the year, and seeing why the sun appears in such radically different places at noon between summer and winter (the elevation at solar noon equals 90° − |latitude − declination|). Enter the location's UTC offset for the date — including daylight saving if it applies — because the algorithm works from an absolute instant in time. Everything runs in your browser; nothing leaves the page.

How to use it

• Enter latitude (north positive) and longitude (east positive).
• Enter the date and the UTC offset that applies on that date (account for DST yourself).
• Read sunrise, solar noon, sunset, and day-length in the summary, then scan the per-15-minute table for the elevation and azimuth at any time of day.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from the single-instant Sun Position calculator?

That tool answers 'where is the sun right now?' This one answers 'what does the sun do all day?' — full per-15-minute trajectory plus the sunrise, solar-noon, sunset, and day-length events you would normally have to compute separately.

How are sunrise and sunset defined?

The conventional astronomical definition: the moment the centre of the solar disk is at a geometric elevation of −0.833°. That value bundles together the half-degree atmospheric refraction at the horizon plus the roughly quarter-degree apparent radius of the sun, so the upper limb of the sun is just at the horizon.

How accurate are the times?

Sunrise and sunset come out within roughly a minute of the NOAA published values for most latitudes. They drift at very high latitudes near the polar night/midnight-sun boundary, where the rate of change is non-linear — the tool notes when the sun does not rise or set at all on the chosen date.

What is solar noon?

The moment the sun crosses the local meridian (due south in the northern hemisphere, due north in the southern) and is at its highest elevation of the day. It is the midpoint of the day in true solar time, not always 12:00 local clock time — the equation of time and your longitude within your time-zone shift it.

Why does the sun not rise on some dates at high latitudes?

North of the Arctic Circle (~66.5° N), in the weeks around the December solstice, the sun stays below −0.833° all 24 hours — polar night. The mirror image happens at the same latitudes in June (midnight sun) and in the Antarctic in June (polar night) and December (midnight sun). The tool reports 'sun does not rise' or 'sun does not set' for those days.

Is anything uploaded?

No. The NOAA computation and the rise/set solver run entirely in your browser.

Related tools

• Sun Position (single instant)
• Solar Panel Tilt Angle
• City UTC Offset
• DST Schedule Impact