Sun Path & Shadow Tracker

Where the sun will be and where the shadow will fall — for any place, at any hour. Bearing, height above the horizon and shadow length sit on the first screen. The maths runs on your phone, offline, and needs no account.

What it does

Sun path calculator — the sun’s compass bearing and height for any date, drawn as an arc over the live camera view and on a sundial you can drag through the day.
Shadow length calculator — how long a shadow falls and in which direction, for any object height, drawn on the map for the exact spot.
Golden hour and sunrise/sunset times — sunrise, golden hour, sunset and blue hour for the place you are looking at, and a reminder 15 minutes before the evening golden hour.

Who it is for

Photographers and film crews chasing the golden hour and the blue hour.
Gardeners working out which corner gets afternoon light.
Architects, builders and solar installers checking overshadowing.
Anyone choosing an apartment, a hotel room, a campsite or a terrace table.

The position is computed with the NOAA solar algorithm and assumes a level, unobstructed horizon — it knows nothing about hills, buildings, trees or weather. Not for navigation, aviation or maritime use.

Support

Questions, bug reports, feature requests:

anilsancarr@gmail.com

I reply to every message, usually within two working days. It helps if you tell me your device, your iOS version, and what you expected to happen.

If the sun looks like it is in the wrong place

Two things cause almost all of it, and both are worth checking before you write:

The compass needs the phone, not the app. If the sky view points the wrong way, move the phone in a figure of eight for a few seconds. Magnets in cases, car mounts and speakers throw the magnetometer off badly.
The app uses the location you gave it, not the one you are standing in. If you picked a place on the map, the numbers are for that place. The name at the top of the Today screen always tells you which one it is using.

If neither explains it, send me the place, the date and the time you were looking at, and what the app said. Solar position is exact geometry, so a real error is reproducible and I can fix it.

Legal

Credits

The sky photograph in the App Store screenshots is Beauty of Bali Sunrise by Zexsen Xie, used under CC BY 2.0.