Sunrise, Sunset & Twilight Times Scraper

Sunrise, Sunset & Twilight Times Scraper

Get sunrise, sunset, and twilight times for any GPS coordinate and date, up to a million rows per run. Each row returns solar noon, day length, and civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Planning outdoor shoots, scheduling construction, or modeling daylight hours means you need accurate solar data for specific locations and dates. This actor queries the public sunrise-sunset.org API for every coordinate and date you provide, returning a clean, flat dataset. No registration, no API key, and no rate-limit headaches.

Who uses it	What they scrape Sunrise Sunset Times API for
Photographers and filmmakers	Plan golden hour and blue hour shoots weeks in advance for any location.
Construction and field-service managers	Schedule outdoor crews based on precise daylight availability per job site.
Agricultural analysts	Correlate day-length changes with crop growth cycles across multiple farm coordinates.
Astronomy and outdoor hobbyists	Build a personal almanac of twilight and darkness windows for stargazing or hiking trips.

What it does

This Actor collects sunrise, sunset, solar noon, day length, and civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight times for any list of GPS coordinates and dates, and returns each combination as a single flat row.

• 📍 Bulk coordinates: paste a JSON array of named GPS pairs and get results for every location in one run.
• 📅 Multi-date queries: supply a list of YYYY-MM-DD dates, or leave it empty to default to today in UTC.
• 🕒 Flexible time formats: choose ISO 8601 UTC timestamps for databases or human-readable 12-hour strings for reports.
• 🌗 Complete twilight phases: every row includes civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight start and end times.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Sunrise Sunset Times API data

📸 Plan a multi-city photography trip.

A travel photographer loads the GPS coordinates of ten destinations and the dates of each visit, then exports a CSV of golden hour and blue hour windows to build the shot list.

🏗️ Schedule outdoor concrete pours.

A project manager queries sunrise and sunset times for a construction site across a two-week window to confirm daylight hours before ordering temperature-sensitive materials.

🌾 Model day-length sensitivity for crops.

An agronomist pulls daily sunrise and sunset data for a dozen test plots over a growing season and joins it with yield data to measure photoperiod effects.

🔭 Build a dark-sky calendar.

An amateur astronomer scrapes astronomical twilight end times for a remote observation site across the year to find the darkest weekends for a star party.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	The underlying sunrise-sunset.org API is free and open. You supply coordinates and dates, the actor handles the rest.
Fixed flat schema	Every row has the same columns: location name, coordinates, date, sunrise, sunset, solar noon, day length, and all three twilight pairs.
Coordinates × dates	The actor computes the Cartesian product of your locations and dates, so one run covers every combination you need.

How it compares

This actor focuses on bulk solar-time collection from sunrise-sunset.org, while the competitors below either bundle extra astronomical data or offer date-range convenience.

Feature	ParseForge	Global Time Engine	Sunrise Sunset Search	Sunrise Sunset Scraper
Bulk GPS coordinates in one run	Yes, accepts a JSON array of coordinate objects	Not listed	Not listed	Not listed
Civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight	Yes, all three twilight phases per row	Yes	Yes	Yes
Solar noon and day length	Yes, included in every row	Not listed	Yes	Yes
Date range input (start to end)	Not listed, accepts explicit date list only	Not listed	Yes	Yes
Moon phases and weather data	No, solar times only	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
Prayer times and Qibla direction	No, solar times only	Yes	Not listed	Not listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a JSON array of GPS coordinates and a list of dates, alone or together, and the maxItems limit stops the run once you have enough rows. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "coordinates": [
    {
      "name": "New York City",
      "lat": 40.7128,
      "lng": -74.006
    }
  ],
  "dates": [],
  "timeFormat": "iso",
  "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
  "coordinates": [
    {
      "name": "New York City",
      "lat": 40.7128,
      "lng": -74.006
    }
  ],
  "dates": [],
  "timeFormat": "iso",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.01333 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.33
1,000 results	$13.33
10,000 results	$133.30

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Sunrise, Sunset & Twilight Times Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Sunrise Sunset Times API through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/sunrise-sunset-times-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your coordinates array is valid JSON and that each object contains numeric "lat" and "lng" fields. Also confirm that maxItems is set to at least 1.

Why are all my times in UTC?

The sunrise-sunset.org API returns UTC by design. The human-readable format still shows a 12-hour clock but does not convert to a local time zone.

Why did the run stop before processing all my dates?

The maxItems field caps the total number of rows. If your coordinates × dates product exceeds maxItems, the actor stops once that limit is reached. Increase maxItems to collect more rows.

Why do I see an error about invalid coordinates?

Latitude must be between -90 and 90, and longitude between -180 and 180. Check for typos, missing fields, or values outside these ranges in your JSON input.

Can I get times for a location without a name?

Yes. The "name" field in each coordinate object is optional. If omitted, the output row will show an empty label for that location.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need an API key or account?	No. The actor calls the free and open sunrise-sunset.org API, which does not require registration or an API key.
What time zone are the results in?	All times are returned in UTC. When you select the human-readable format, the actor still computes from UTC and presents a 12-hour clock string.
Can I get times for a date range instead of a list of specific dates?	The input accepts an explicit list of YYYY-MM-DD dates. To cover a range, generate the date list before the run, or use multiple date entries in the array.
How many locations and dates can I query in one run?	The actor computes the product of your coordinates array and your dates array. You can set maxItems up to 1,000,000 to cap the total rows returned.
What is the difference between civil, nautical, and astronomical twilight?	Civil twilight is when the sun is 0-6° below the horizon (enough light for most outdoor activities). Nautical twilight is 6-12° below (horizon still visible at sea). Astronomical twilight is 12-18° below (sky dark enough for most stargazing).
Does this actor return solar noon and day length?	Yes. Every row includes the exact solar noon timestamp and the total day length for that location and date.
Can I use this for moon phases or weather data?	No. This actor returns only solar times from sunrise-sunset.org. It does not include lunar data, weather, or prayer times.
What happens if I leave the dates array empty?	The actor defaults to today's date in UTC and returns one row per coordinate for the current day.
How do I format the coordinates input?	Supply a JSON array of objects. Each object needs "lat" and "lng" numbers. An optional "name" string labels the location in the output.
Can I export the results to Excel?	Yes. The dataset can be exported in CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Sunrise-Sunset.org. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.