Science & history · How the Sun moves across your sky
Solar noon is rarely 12:00
Solar noon is the moment the Sun crosses your meridian, the north–south line through the sky. Clocks do not follow it.
Solar noon where you are
Worked out in your browser for your place. Choose a place on the Sun's Today page.
Three reasons it drifts
A time zone uses one clock for a wide band of longitudes, so places towards its eastern edge see the Sun cross earlier than those to the west. Daylight saving time moves the clock by an hour. And the equation of time shifts solar noon by up to about 16 minutes over the year.
The page shows solar noon for your place, worked out from the Sun's position, along with how high the Sun gets. It is the same calculation as your sunrise and sunset times, so the three always agree.
Sources
- US Naval Observatory The Equation of Time (opens in a new tab) for apparent vs mean solar time, its two causes, the analemma · checked 2 October 2026
- Cool Moon Facts How the Sun pages calculate for the engine, its definitions, its independent checks and its limits