Table of Sunrise/Sunset, Moonrise/Moonset, or Twilight Times for an Entire Year

This data services provides a method for obtaining a table of the times of sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, or the beginning and end of twilight for any year between 1700 and 2100.

Use the following steps to obtain a table of desired phenomena for any location worldwide:

Enter the year for which the table is desired.
Select the table type (sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, etc.) from the drop-down list.
Specify the location of interest using the fields provided on the form. Use the buttons to find coordinates of cities or towns in the U.S. or its territories, or to convert between Degrees-Minutes-Seconds (DMS) and Decimal Degrees.
Click the "Get Data" button at the end of the form to compute the table. The table will provide the data requested at local standard time on a 24-hour clock; for example, 1836 means 6:36 p.m., local standard time.

Be sure to read Notes section for an explanation of the items in the table.

US Location For example: Washington, DC

City

State or Territory

The place name you enter above must be a city or town in the U.S. The place's location will be retrieved from a list of over 22,000 places. Either upper- or lower-case letters or a combination can be used. Spell out place name prefixes, as in "East Orange", "Fort Lauderdale", "Mount Vernon", etc. The only exception is "St.", which is entered as an abbreviation with a period, as in "St. Louis". You need only enter as many characters as will unambiguously identify the place.

Specify year, type of table, and place:

Year For example: 1986

Type of Table:

Location Coordinates in decimal degrees, North and East are positive. For example: 38.9072, -77.0369

Latitude

Longitude

Location Label Custom label for printed output. For example: Washington, DC

Need coordinates? Try NGA's GEOnet Names Server (GNS)
Need U.S. coordinates? Try the USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) .

Time Zone Example: 5 hours West of Greenwich (UTC-5) is Eastern Standard Time

hours

direction

East of Greenwich (UTC)

West of Greenwich (UTC)

Need a time zone? Try the time zone map.

Notes

Definitions

For information on the definitions of rise, set, and twilight, see Rise, Set, and Twilight Definitions in the Astronomical Information Center.

Time Zones

When using the "Need USA Location" button, the service will fill the Time Zone hours field and set the Time Zone direction button according to the current standard time zone of the US place entered.

The railroads introduced standardized time zones to the USA in 1883. Since then, time zone boundaries have evolved considerably, with many cities and counties shifting from one zone to another. This service makes no attempt to track such historical changes.

For locations that require it, you may enter the time zone in decimal hours. For example, for locations in India, you may enter 5.5 hours east of Greenwich for the time zone. The time zone field can accommodate up to five characters.

Legal Use of the Data in the Table

Please see Astronomical Data Used for Litigation if you are interested in using for legal purposes the data produced by this service.

Sunset photo taken from Nags Head, North Carolina, by George Kaplan.