Sunrise and sunset today

What these times mean

Sunrise is the moment the upper edge of the sun clears the horizon, and sunset the moment it disappears; both include the bending of light by the air (standard refraction), which lifts the sun into view a couple of minutes before it is geometrically up. Day length is the time between the two. Solar noon lies midway between them: the sun is at its highest and shadows point due north or south.

Civil twilight is the half hour of usable light around them: civil dawn begins when the sun's centre is 6° below the horizon, civil dusk ends when it sinks to 6° below. In India it lasts about 20 to 30 minutes, longest near the solstices and in the north.

Why sunrise matters in the panchang

The Hindu day runs from one sunrise to the next, not from midnight. The tithi, nakshatra and weekday of a day are the ones in force at sunrise, which is why a vrat can fall on different dates in two cities. Rahu kaal, choghadiya, hora and abhijit muhurat are all slices of this city's own daylight, and the morning prayers of sandhya are timed by it.

So when a panchang gives another city's sunrise, every time built on it moves too. The times on this page are computed for this city's own latitude and longitude, from the same engine as its panchang.

How the month changes

Sunrise and sunset do not move together. After the winter solstice the evenings lengthen first while the mornings still darken for a few weeks; near the summer solstice the earliest sunrise comes before the longest day. Both follow from the tilt of the earth and its uneven speed around the sun (the equation of time), and the month table shows it day by day.