Planning sun position: how to never shoot into the sun at the airport

Up early, runway configuration is right, the long-haul jet arrives on time – and then the sun is right behind it. All you get on the display is a dark silhouette with a blown-out sky. If you can plan sun position for your photo spot, days like that become much rarer. This guide shows you the logic behind azimuth and elevation, turns it into rules of thumb for runways and spotting points, and explains why the same location works at completely different times in winter than in summer.

Planning sun position: the short answer

You plan sun position by comparing the orientation of the runway and your position next to it with the sun azimuth at the planned time. If the sun is roughly behind you and grazes the side of the fuselage facing you, you get evenly lit side views. If it is behind the aircraft, you are shooting into backlight. Time of day, season and spot choice are just adjusting screws on this one relationship.

You need two terms for this. The azimuth gives the compass direction of the sun, measured clockwise from north: 90 degrees is east, 180 degrees south, 270 degrees west. The elevation tells you how high the sun is above the horizon. The azimuth decides which side of the aircraft gets light; the elevation decides shadows, contrast and – especially important at airports – the brightness of the underside of the fuselage.

The runway number is your compass

At the airport you have an advantage over other photographers: The axis along which your subjects move is already on every map. The runway number is the magnetic heading of the runway, rounded to ten degrees and divided by ten. Runway 23 therefore points roughly to 230 degrees (southwest), runway 05 to 50 degrees (northeast). The reciprocal direction is always 180 degrees away, which is why the two ends of a runway always differ by 18.

A few examples from our profiles:

• Munich Airport has two parallel runways 08L/26R and 08R/26L – an almost pure east-west axis.
• At Frankfurt Airport three runways run parallel in direction 07/25, plus the Runway 18 West heading south – two completely different lighting situations at one airport.
• At the Düsseldorf observation deck you look at the parallel runway system 05/23, so an axis from northeast to southwest.

The number refers to magnetic north. In central Europe that differs from true north by only a few degrees – negligible for light planning. Which end of the runway is in use on a given day depends on the wind; the guide Understanding runway direction in use at an airport explains that in detail. For the light, the runway direction in use still matters: It decides whether you see the aircraft from the front-side or from the rear-side.

South side, north side: the most important rule of thumb

In central Europe the sun is always in the south around the middle of the day. That gives the basic rule for every east-west runway:

• South of the runway you look north and have the sun behind you during the day. The south flank of the aircraft facing you is in the light. This is the comfortable side.
• North of the runway you look south and shoot straight into backlight around midday. It only becomes usable there early in the morning and late in the evening, when the sun is off to the side – in the summer half of the year it even moves slightly behind you to the north.

At the Munich Airport visitors’ hill (Besucherhügel) you see exactly this: Looking north toward the north runway you have the sun behind you during the day, looking south you have backlight at noon and only side light in the morning and evening. For runways with a different orientation the rule shifts accordingly. On a northeast-southwest runway like the one in Düsseldorf, you have the sun behind you from the morning until early afternoon on the southeast side (looking northwest). On the northwest side (looking southeast) the light only gets better in the afternoon and evening, once the sun has moved west.

Runway axis	Good side during the day	Backlight side	What the edges of the day bring
East–west (e.g. 08/26, 07/25)	South side, looking north	North side around midday	in summer usable light in the morning and evening on the north side too
Northeast–southwest (e.g. 05/23)	Southeast side, morning to early afternoon	Northwest side in the morning	northwest side gets better in the afternoon and on summer evenings
North–south (e.g. 18/36)	East side in the morning, west side in the afternoon	the other side in each case	at midday the light comes along the axis, so onto the nose or tail
Northwest–southeast (e.g. 14/32)	Southwest side, more in the afternoon	Northeast side around midday and in the afternoon	northeast side gets light early in the morning in summer

This table describes tendencies, not times. Whether and when a specific location works also depends on the season.

Why 12:00 is not noon

The most common planning mistake: assuming the sun is in the south at 12:00. Three effects shift the highest point.

• Longitude: Central European Time is the mean local time at the 15th meridian east. For every degree your spot lies west of it, the sun reaches its highest point about four minutes later. Almost all of Germany’s big airports lie well west of it.
• Equation of time: Because Earth’s orbit is elliptical and its axis is tilted, the sun runs up to a good quarter of an hour ahead of or behind the clock over the year.
• Daylight saving time: From the end of March to the end of October, a full hour is added.

Taken together, the sun’s highest point in Germany during daylight saving time is usually not until after 1 p.m., noticeably later at western airports. If you plan your light windows by the clock, you can easily be an hour off. You can work out the longitude part yourself here:

The season turns your spot around

The point where the sun rises shifts considerably over the year. The reason is the solar declination, which swings between about plus 23.4 degrees at the summer solstice and minus 23.4 degrees at the winter solstice. For Germany’s latitudes this gives rough ranges:

Time	Sunrise roughly	Sunset roughly	Noon height roughly	What that means at the airport
Summer solstice	Northeast, around 45–55°	Northwest, around 305–315°	58–66°	North side of an east-west runway gets light early in the morning and late in the evening, heat shimmer at midday
Equinox	almost exactly east	almost exactly west	35–43°	balanced light, east-west runways almost in raking light in the morning and evening
Winter solstice	Southeast, around 125–135°	Southwest, around 225–235°	12–20°	south side good all day, north side in backlight practically all day

The values are rounded rule-of-thumb ranges, not table values for a specific location. But they help you quickly estimate whether a spot is worth it at all in the current season.

Estimating the noon height yourself

The maximum sun height of a day follows a simple formula: 90 degrees minus latitude plus solar declination. In Munich (around 48 degrees north) the sun is therefore about 42 degrees high at noon at the equinox, about 65 degrees in midsummer, and only about 18 degrees in midwinter. In Hamburg (around 53.5 degrees north) it is a good five degrees less in each case.

What a high sun does at the airport

For aircraft photos, elevation is almost more important than for other subjects. You should know three effects:

• Dark undersides: With a steep sun, the belly of the fuselage is in shadow. In approach shots that you take from a low angle, the aircraft then looks flat and dark. A low sun, on the other hand, still lights up the landing gear and underside.
• Heat shimmer: On warm days the asphalt heats up, and the rising air blurs detail at long distances. Taxiing shots with a long focal length across the runway especially suffer from this around midday. In the morning the air is usually calmer.
• White fuselages: Many airlines fly with mostly white fuselages, such as Lufthansa in its current design. In full, direct sun these surfaces blow out quickly. Slightly tighter exposure is then the safer choice; more on cameras and lenses is in the gear checklist.

With big aircraft like the Airbus A380 or the Boeing 777-300ER the effect stands out especially because the flank is so large: In good side light the sun sculpts the curve of the fuselage; with a high sun the flank becomes a flat, low-contrast surface.

From spot to time window: step by step

Once you have the basics, the actual planning becomes routine. The process is the same at every airport.

For step 5 it is worth combining with live data: How to find out which aircraft is currently on approach using flight tracking and ADS-B is described in the guide Flight tracking with ADS-B for spotters. That way you know not only when the light fits, but also whether anything interesting is coming in that time window.

When the light does not cooperate

Not every spot can be turned into front light. Some locations are simply on the “wrong” side, and sometimes the runway direction in use is against you. Then you have three options – all three are legitimate.

Important with every change of location: Stay on public paths and designated areas. What is allowed around the fence and what is not is summarized in the article Is plane spotting allowed?.

What to watch out for

• Plan by azimuth, not by the clock. The clock time is a time zone convention – the sun follows your longitude.
• Factor in the local horizon. Calculated sunrise and sunset times apply to a clear horizon. Terminals, hangars and trees often shorten your window considerably.
• Think of takeoffs and landings separately. You see landing aircraft in a different attitude and often from a different side than departing ones. A spot can be perfect for landings and useless for takeoffs.
• Clouds are not a write-off. A thin cloud layer acts like a giant diffuser and rescues spots that would be in backlight in full sun – with even cloud cover, light direction hardly matters.
• Never aim at the sun. Pointing your eyes or a telephoto lens directly at the sun can damage your eyes and the camera sensor. Shoot backlit pictures only with the sun just outside the frame or behind the aircraft.

Your own light catalog

The biggest gain comes not from a better tool but from notes. After every visit, write down: date, spot, runway direction in use, when the light fit and when it was gone. After one season you have a personal light catalog that knows the hangars, trees and sight lines of your regular spots – no general rule can do that.

If you are still at the beginning, the guide Plane spotting for beginners helps you choose your first spots. Check the light direction there first, then you can try out the rules of thumb from this article right at the fence.

Conclusion

Light planning at the airport is geometry with a few ingredients: the runway axis from the runway number, your side next to it, the sun azimuth at the planned time and the sun’s height. In central Europe this almost always holds: South of the runway looking north you are better off, the edges of the day beat the midday hours, and winter is often more rewarding for light than its reputation suggests. What no calculator knows, you learn on site – and write down.