The difference between a flat photo and a glowing one in West Raleigh is usually forty-five minutes. The calculator below shows exactly which forty-five minutes — today's sunset, sunrise, golden and blue hour, live. On this side of the country, sunrise is the underrated window — the sun comes up over the Atlantic side and morning golden hour is quieter than the evening one.
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: For skylines and wide shots, the 15 minutes after sunset usually beats the sunset itself: the sky holds color while buildings and streetlights come up.
In West Raleigh, sunset ranges from 5:00 PM in December to 8:34 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for West Raleigh's coordinates (35.7868, -78.6639) and shown in America/New_York.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:23 AM | 5:24 PM | 4:46 PM – 5:24 PM | 38 min | 10h 01m |
| February | 7:01 AM | 5:56 PM | 5:21 PM – 5:56 PM | 35 min | 10h 55m |
| March | 7:25 AM | 7:22 PM | 6:48 PM – 7:22 PM | 34 min | 11h 57m |
| April | 6:41 AM | 7:48 PM | 7:13 PM – 7:48 PM | 35 min | 13h 06m |
| May | 6:09 AM | 8:13 PM | 7:36 PM – 8:13 PM | 37 min | 14h 04m |
| June | 5:58 AM | 8:32 PM | 7:54 PM – 8:32 PM | 38 min | 14h 34m |
| July | 6:10 AM | 8:30 PM | 7:53 PM – 8:30 PM | 37 min | 14h 21m |
| August | 6:33 AM | 8:04 PM | 7:29 PM – 8:04 PM | 35 min | 13h 31m |
| September | 6:57 AM | 7:21 PM | 6:48 PM – 7:21 PM | 33 min | 12h 24m |
| October | 7:21 AM | 6:38 PM | 6:04 PM – 6:38 PM | 34 min | 11h 18m |
| November | 6:50 AM | 5:07 PM | 4:30 PM – 5:07 PM | 37 min | 10h 17m |
| December | 7:17 AM | 5:02 PM | 4:22 PM – 5:02 PM | 40 min | 9h 45m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in West Raleigh. It is longest in December at about 40 minutes and shortest in September at about 33 minutes — a difference of 7 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
West Raleigh gets 4h 49m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 5:02 PM in December to 8:32 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 9:02 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.
