Sunrise and sunset in Rockhampton: today’s times
Today in Rockhampton (Queensland) the sun rises at 05:25 and sets at 18:03. Below you will find the day length, the golden hour, the twilights and a table for the next seven days.
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Sunrise
05:25
Direction: 100°
Sunset
18:03
Direction: 260°
Day length
12h 38min
+0h 01min compared with yesterday
Solar noon
11:44
Maximum sun altitude: 75.5°
Golden hour
17:33 – 18:17
05:11 – 05:55
Blue hour
18:17 – 18:26
05:02 – 05:11
All times in the Australia/Brisbane time zone (UTC+10).
Twilight begins / Twilight ends
| Twilight begins | Twilight ends | |
|---|---|---|
| civil | 05:02 | 18:26 |
| nautical | 04:35 | 18:53 |
| astronomical | 04:08 | 19:20 |
Sunrise and sunset over the next seven days
| Date | Sunrise | Sunset | Day length | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fri 16/10 | 05:25 | 18:03 | 12h 38min | +1 min |
| Sat 17/10 | 05:24 | 18:03 | 12h 39min | +1 min |
| Sun 18/10 | 05:23 | 18:04 | 12h 41min | +2 min |
| Mon 19/10 | 05:22 | 18:04 | 12h 42min | +1 min |
| Tue 20/10 | 05:21 | 18:05 | 12h 43min | +1 min |
| Wed 21/10 | 05:21 | 18:05 | 12h 45min | +2 min |
| Thu 22/10 | 05:20 | 18:06 | 12h 46min | +1 min |
How the times change through the year
| Date | Sunrise | Sunset | Day length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Mar 2026 | Autumn equinox | 06:01 | 18:09 | 12h 08min |
| 21 Jun 2026 | Winter solstice | 06:39 | 17:21 | 10h 42min |
| 23 Sept 2026 | Spring equinox | 05:47 | 17:54 | 12h 07min |
| 22 Dec 2026 | Summer solstice | 05:08 | 18:43 | 13h 35min |
Longest day of the year: 22 Dec 2026 · Shortest day of the year: 21 Jun 2026 · Solstices and equinoxes
Moon — Today
| Current phase | Illumination | Moonrise | Moonset |
|---|---|---|---|
| Waxing crescent | 27% | 08:56 | 23:10 |
The moon today: phase, illumination and what comes next · What planets are visible tonight
Nearby cities
Frequently asked questions
- What time does the sun set today in Rockhampton?
- The time is at the top of this page and is recalculated every day. It shifts by a few minutes a day: the weekly table shows which way it is going.
- What is the golden hour?
- It is the stretch when the Sun sits between 6° above and 4° below the horizon, with low, orange light. The blue hour follows, with the Sun between 4° and 6° below the horizon.
- Why is solar noon not at 12:00?
- Because a time zone is a political convention and your city is almost never on the zone’s central meridian. On top of that, the equation of time runs the Sun up to about 16 minutes early or late over the year.
- Do the times include daylight saving time?
- Yes. The conversion uses the system time-zone database, which carries each country’s daylight saving rules.
How to read this page
How to read a sunrise time
05:25 is the instant the upper edge of the Sun touches the horizon, assuming a flat horizon and standard refraction. A mountain, a building or haze to the east delays the visible Sun by minutes.
Where this time comes from
We compute the Sun’s apparent position with the Meeus series, the same one behind NOAA’s solar calculator, and look for the −0.833° altitude, the USNO convention. The Rockhampton time zone comes from the system zone database.
What these numbers do not tell you
The 12h 38min figure is geometric Sun above the horizon, not usable brightness: under heavy cloud it gets dark sooner, and twilight adds light after sunset.
Check against the official source
To compare the Rockhampton times with an official table, the U.S. Naval Observatory publishes a full year of sunrise and sunset for any coordinates.
The sun over Rockhampton through the year
How does day length change through the year in Rockhampton?
Today daylight in Rockhampton lasts 12h 38min. The longest day of the year falls on 21 Dec 2026, at 13h 35min, and the shortest on 21 Jun 2026, at 10h 42min — a gap of 2h 53min between the two extremes. At 23.38° of latitude, Rockhampton has seasons you can read on the clock, but no extremes: no part of the year loses its bright morning or its bright evening.
In Rockhampton, compared with yesterday, the day grew by 0h 01min; at that rate it is 0h 07min a week. The rate peaks near the equinoxes and falls to zero at the solstices.
When is the earliest sunrise and the latest sunset in Rockhampton?
In 2026 the earliest sunrise in Rockhampton is on 01 Dec 2026, at 05:03, and the latest sunset on 11 Jan 2026, at 18:50. Note that the earliest sunrise does not land on the longest day: it happens 20 days before 21 Dec 2026. The culprit is the equation of time: because Earth travels its orbit at a varying speed and its axis is tilted, solar noon drifts through the year, so sunrise and sunset do not move away from the centre of the day by equal amounts.
Why is solar noon in Rockhampton not at 12:00?
Today the Sun crosses the highest point of the sky over Rockhampton at 11:44, 75.5° above the horizon. That is 0h 16min before 12:00. The Australia/Brisbane zone (UTC+10) is a political convention covering a wide band of longitudes, and on top of that the equation of time shifts the Sun by up to about sixteen minutes over the year.
How long does the golden hour last in Rockhampton?
Today the evening golden hour in Rockhampton runs 17:33 – 18:17, that is 44 minutes of low, warm light. The name misleads: in Rockhampton the window is a little under an hour, and it shifts by a few minutes a week as the Sun changes its angle. After it come the blue hour and the end of civil twilight, at 18:26; the sky only turns astronomically dark at 19:20.
Daylight saving time and today’s moon in Rockhampton
Every time on this page is in the Australia/Brisbane zone (UTC+10), the one Rockhampton actually uses, and already accounts for daylight saving where it applies. Rockhampton has no clock change left in 2026, so the variation you see from here is the Sun’s own.
The Moon today is waxing crescent, with 27% of the disc lit and waxing. That matters for stargazing: near full moon the sky over Rockhampton stays bright even after twilight ends.
Words on this page
Civil twilight
The period when the centre of the Sun sits between the horizon and 6° below it. There is still enough light to walk outdoors and make out objects without a lamp, and it is the threshold many traffic codes use to require headlights.
Standard definition by U.S. Naval Observatory — Astronomical Applications Department · Civil twilight
Solar noon
The instant the Sun crosses the local meridian and reaches its highest point of the day. It almost never falls at 12:00 on the clock: time zones are a political convention, your city is rarely on the zone’s central meridian, and the equation of time shifts the Sun by up to about sixteen minutes over the year.
Golden hour
The stretch when the Sun is low — roughly between 6° above and 4° below the horizon — so its light crosses far more atmosphere and turns warm and soft, with long shadows. It does not last an hour: near the equator it is a few minutes, at high latitude it can run past two hours.
Solstice
The moment the Sun reaches its greatest northern or southern declination and appears to stand still before turning back. It marks the longest and the shortest day of the year in each hemisphere, around 21 June and 21 December.
Standard definition by U.S. Naval Observatory — Astronomical Applications Department · Solstice
Nautical twilight
The Sun between 6° and 12° below the horizon. The name comes from navigation: it is the window in which the sea horizon and the bright stars are visible at the same time, which is what made sextant fixes possible.
Standard definition by U.S. Naval Observatory — Astronomical Applications Department · Nautical twilight
Moon phase
The share of the Moon’s disc lit by the Sun that Earth can see, set by the angle between Sun, Earth and Moon. A full cycle, new moon to new moon, takes about 29.53 days and is called the synodic month. The Moon has no permanent dark side, only a side we never face.
Moon illumination
The percentage of the visible lunar disc that is lit. It is 0% at new moon, 50% at the quarters and 100% at full moon, moving a few points a day. Because brightness climbs fastest near full moon, 90% already washes out the sky almost as much as 100%.
How these times are calculated
Sunrise and sunset come from the apparent position of the Sun (Meeus’s series, the same one behind the NOAA solar calculator), solved for the instant when the centre of the Sun crosses an altitude of −0.833°, which puts the upper limb on the horizon with the standard 34′ of refraction. That is the USNO convention. Twilights use −6°, −12° and −18°. Where the Sun never crosses those altitudes the page says there is no sunrise or sunset instead of inventing a time. Checked against the USNO for several cities, including a polar one: largest difference one minute.
The Moon’s position comes from Meeus’s series (chapter 47, full tables), accurate to about 10 arcseconds. Moonrise and moonset use the standard altitude 0.7275·π − 0.5667°, with π the horizontal parallax, which is the USNO convention. The instants of new moon, full moon and the quarters come from Meeus chapter 49, converted from Dynamical Time to UTC. Checked against the USNO: all 50 phases of 2026 agree to within 41 seconds, and moonrise, moonset and illumination agree to the minute and to the percentage point.
- Dados de cidades: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) — GeoNames cities15000, CC BY 4.0
- Rockhampton: -23.3803°, 150.5060° · Australia/Brisbane · Today (UTC): 16 Oct 2026 01:31