Thread: What is last light?

Originally Posted by GravelBen

The official almanac sunset time for a place nearby and the actual time you see the sun disappear over the horizon can be different depending on hills and altitude etc. .

Spot on Ben. The 'official' sources almanac / newspaper / metservice etc don't know exactly where you are and therefore cannot allow for local terrain. I suspect they give a sea level horizon sunset/rise time for the given location. Makes sense for Maritime as Gapped axe says. But deep in a gully the sun will set behind the hill much earlier than up on the tops, even at the exact same lat/long. Maybe the GPS smart devices can correct for local terrain ? - but I doubt it.

Logically it should be 30 mins after the sun actually sets behind the hill wherever you may be, but maybe that's too sensible or too hard to prove. And it doesn't help if it's too cloudy to see the sun. Can't argue with a published timing I guess.