Mountain sunrise and sunset planner

Why a sunrise table can be wrong for your spot

A regional sunrise time describes the astronomical horizon. A mountain can still stand between your camera and the sun after that time. The same ridge can remove the sun before the listed sunset. The horizon changes with the exact observer position and the direction of the sun on your chosen date.

“Light & Moon” shows First direct sunlight and Last direct sunlight at the observer pin. Expand “Full Sun & twilight details” to compare the terrain crossings with the flat-horizon astronomical times. First and last are outer bounds: if the sun disappears behind one ridge and later reappears through a gap, the time between them is not all uninterrupted sunlight.

Golden hour behind a ridge

For scouting, Heliora calls sunlight golden when the sun centre is between 0° and 6° altitude and clears the terrain. If the ridge is higher than the sun for that entire window, the visible golden-hour duration is zero. A later orange sky can still make a photograph, but it is a different lighting condition.

Find a better day ranks the longest continuous golden-hour windows for the selected pin. It does not forecast dramatic clouds, subject illumination or photographic quality.

Explore a terrain example

What the prediction covers

Heliora models the surrounding terrain horizon and the sun’s position at an observer pin. The scouting card uses the apparent sun centre crossing the terrain skyline. Standard sunrise tables usually refer to the upper edge of the sun, so the two definitions can differ even at sea level.

The terrain grid (roughly 100–300 metres at mid-latitudes, depending on device and zoom) cannot resolve every nearby wall, ledge or narrow gap. Mobile previews use a coarser horizon than the desktop examples. Trees, buildings, clouds and access permissions are not assessed by these scouting results. Numerical refinement to a minute does not imply one-minute field accuracy. A distant subject may be sunlit while your camera is in shade.

Read the calculation method and accuracy notes. Astronomy uses Astronomy Engine; terrain uses AWS terrain tiles. The examples below are computed predictions, not field observations.

How to check a prediction in the field

Record the exact camera position and height, date, local timezone, and when the sun centre crosses the ridge. Take a reference photo with permission to publish it. Compare the observation with the saved scene, recording uncertainty from the clock, refraction and the terrain grid. These example pages have not yet undergone that field check.