How to See the Perfect Sunset on the Golden Gate Bridge
At sunset, the Golden Gate Bridge functions as a sundial or solar calendar. If you want to see the sunset in the center of the bridge, at the bend of the main span between its two towers, you will have to stand in different places every night. Throughout the year, you can see the perfect sunset from across the East Bay and the northeast coast of San Francisco. And several sites will show you where to camp.
The Golden Gate sunset map shows you where to stand every day along East Bay from October 17 to February 23. The HTML version on the same site also lists some locations on Alcatraz and elsewhere. The project “Sundial at Sunset on the Golden Gate Bridge” draws attention to several places around the bay all year round. (The Sundial Project also features a more impressive sunset photo – copyrighted and the only one we could find on the Internet – so click.)
It’s the equivalent of the Manhattanhenge Bay Area, a New York City phenomenon where sunset lines up with the grid of Manhattan streets for days in the spring and fall. But if you can only look at the grid of streets from one angle, then you can look at the bridge from many. Although, of course, it looks especially impressive when viewed directly. For this (according to the project “Sundial”) your best shot is Alcatraz on March 1 and Treasure Island on October 1.
For a more versatile sunset visualizer, try The Photographer’s Ephemeris , an app recommended by the chatty MetaFilter user . This Android and iOS app shows the angles of sunlight around the world at different times and days, so you can schedule a photo shoot in advance. Although it’s all in vain if the clouds get in your way – and they are much more difficult to predict than the sun.
One request: if you really got the perfect shot of a sunset at Golden Gate, can you post it online and name it correctly? Better yet, can you release it under a Creative Commons license? Then we could give this post the illustration it deserves.
Sunsets and sundial the Golden Gate (via MetaFilter )