Photographers plan around two windows: the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. Here are both for Las Cruces — computed live for its exact coordinates, accurate for any date you pick. Note the times below account for Las Cruces's latitude — golden hour runs longer in winter and shorter at midsummer than most charts assume.
The month-by-month table below is in this city's own local time. The live times above follow your device's timezone. Mountains, ridgelines and buildings can shorten the usable window — scout your horizon.
Local tip: Reflections double golden hour: water, glass buildings and wet pavement all pick up the sky's color in the hour around sunset.
In Las Cruces, sunset ranges from 5:01 PM in November to 8:18 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for Las Cruces's coordinates (32.3123, -106.7783) and shown in America/Denver.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:08 AM | 5:24 PM | 4:48 PM – 5:24 PM | 36 min | 10h 16m |
| February | 6:49 AM | 5:53 PM | 5:19 PM – 5:53 PM | 34 min | 11h 04m |
| March | 7:17 AM | 7:15 PM | 6:42 PM – 7:15 PM | 33 min | 11h 58m |
| April | 6:37 AM | 7:36 PM | 7:03 PM – 7:36 PM | 33 min | 12h 59m |
| May | 6:09 AM | 7:58 PM | 7:23 PM – 7:58 PM | 35 min | 13h 49m |
| June | 5:59 AM | 8:15 PM | 7:39 PM – 8:15 PM | 36 min | 14h 16m |
| July | 6:11 AM | 8:14 PM | 7:39 PM – 8:14 PM | 35 min | 14h 04m |
| August | 6:31 AM | 7:51 PM | 7:17 PM – 7:51 PM | 34 min | 13h 20m |
| September | 6:51 AM | 7:12 PM | 6:40 PM – 7:12 PM | 32 min | 12h 22m |
| October | 7:10 AM | 6:34 PM | 6:01 PM – 6:34 PM | 33 min | 11h 23m |
| November | 6:36 AM | 5:06 PM | 4:31 PM – 5:06 PM | 35 min | 10h 30m |
| December | 7:01 AM | 5:03 PM | 4:26 PM – 5:03 PM | 37 min | 10h 03m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in Las Cruces. It is longest in December at about 37 minutes and shortest in September at about 32 minutes — a difference of 5 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
Las Cruces gets 4h 13m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 5:03 PM in December to 8:15 PM in June, so an evening shoot that works in summer will be shooting in the dark at the same clock time in winter.
Blue hour follows sunset and is worth planning for separately: in June it runs until about 8:44 PM, and in December until about 5:30 PM.
Golden hour is the stretch just after sunrise and just before sunset, when the low sun turns hard daylight into soft, warm, directional light — the most flattering natural light for portraits, real estate, product and landscape photography. Blue hour follows sunset (and precedes sunrise): a short window of deep, even blue that's ideal for twilight real estate shots and skylines. Both windows change with latitude and season, which is why this page computes them live instead of guessing.
Kanyon Studio is a San Diego photography and video studio — golden hour is our home field. Brand shoots, products, real estate and portraits, planned around exactly this light.
