Free Online Blue Hour and Golden Hour Calculator

I’ve already written about free online golden hour calculators, here and here.  Recently I came across another one that includes blue hour results, at JeKoPhoto’s Tools’ page.  When you go to that page, you’ll be presented with a map and a few fields to specify the location (first image below).  You type in a location into the “Search” field (as I did below), hit the submit button, and the calculator will take you to the results screen (second image below).

The blue hour results screen displays the sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset for the current date, as seen below.  If you want to see values for a different day within the current month, then just click the desired date line in the “Blue Hour Table” section of the display.  The colored bar in the middle displays the golden and blue hours around sunrise (SR) and sunset (SS) times.  Moonrise (MR) and moonset (MS) are also shown on this same bar.

If you are unfamiliar with the term golden hour, it refers to the first and last hour of sunlight during the day.  During the golden hour, light traveling through the atmosphere has much of its blue spectrum filtered out, making the light appear more yellow.  This permits you to shoot photos like this one:

by TRAINUT

The blue hour occurs during the period of twilight between the golden hour and complete darkness.  That time period produces photos in which the sky is a deep and lovely dark blue, such as this one:

by laverrue

For those interested in blue hour photography, see bluehoursite.com.  Its tag line is “Everything about Blue Hour and Night Photography.”  You may want to check this one out, too.

So now you have no excuses for not shooting during the golden or blue hours.  Oh, and if you need some help with exactly how to shoot during the blue hour, check out this post for guidance.  Or pick up Lance Keimig’s book on night photography, which I reviewed here.

Comments

[BobM]

Thanks for the post--good reminders, and new information about sources. Our favorite times of day for shooting.