Category Archives: Candle lighting

Hebcal can generate Candle-lighting & Havdalah times for Shabbat and holidays, and start and end times for fast days. Over 100,000 world cities are supported.

Candle-lighting times / הַדְלָקַת נֵרוֹת

By default, candle lighting time is 18 minutes before sundown (40 minutes for Jerusalem, 30 minutes for Haifa and Zikhron Ya’akov) on Erev Shabbat (Friday) and Erev Chag (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shmini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Pesach, Shavuot).

Hebcal gives an option to specify a different number of minutes before sunset if you don’t follow the 18-minute minhag (for example, some light candles 20 minutes before sundown).

Chanukah candle-lighting times are at bein hashmashos on weekdays. Rabbeinu Tam holds that bein hashmashos is a specific time between sunset and tzeit hakochavim. One opinion on how to calculate this time is that it is 13.5 minutes before tzies 7.083°. Chanukah candles are lit just before Shabbat candles on Friday, and immediately after Havdalah on Saturday night.

Havdalah / הַבְדָּלָה

Havdalah is calculated according to tzeit hakochavim / צֵאת הַכּוֹכָבִים, the point when 3 small stars are observable in the night sky with the naked eye (sun 8.5° below the horizon). This option is an excellent default for most places on the planet.

Hebcal also offers the option to use a fixed number of minutes past sundown. Typically one would enter 42 min for three medium-sized stars, 50 min for three small stars, 72 min for Rabbeinu Tam, or 0 to suppress Havdalah times.

Fast times

Minor fasts begin in the morning at alot haShachar / עֲלוֹת הַשַּׁחַר (solar depression 16.1 degrees) and conclude at tzeit for 3 medium sized stars (solar depression 7.083 degrees). Both start and end times are displayed for following minor fasts:

• Tzom Gedaliah
• Asara B’Tevet
• Ta’anit Esther
• Tzom Tammuz

Hebcal displays only a start time for Ta’anit Bechorot because customs vary about when to end the fast (often at a siyyum at the conclusion of morning services).

The fast of Tish’a B’Av begins at sunset and concludes at tzeit for 3 medium sized stars (solar depression 7.083 degrees).

Yom Kippur fast begins before sunset at regular candle-lighting time and concludes at Havdalah time. Hebcal doesn’t display “Fast begins” or “Fast ends” events for YK; instead, the fast start and end times are indicated with the regular “Candle lighting” and “Havdalah” event titles.

Sunset

According to the United States Naval Observatory,

Sunrise or sunset is defined to occur when the geometric zenith distance of center of the Sun is 90.8333 degrees. That is, the center of the Sun is geometrically 50 arcminutes below a horizontal plane. For an observer at sea level with a level, unobstructed horizon, under average atmospheric conditions, the upper limb of the Sun will then appear to be tangent to the horizon. The 50-arcminute geometric depression of the Sun’s center used for the computations is obtained by adding the average apparent radius of the Sun (16 arcminutes) to the average amount of atmospheric refraction at the horizon (34 arcminutes). [USNO]

A note about accuracy

How accurate are candle lighting times?

If you ever have any doubts about Hebcal times, consult your local halachic authority.

If you select a location (or enter geographic coordinates) above the arctic circle or below the antarctic circle, the times are guaranteed to be wrong. The NOAA algorithm used to calculate the position of the sun is inaccurate at extreme northern and southern latitudes.

Candle-lighting and Havdalah times are derived from sunset times, which are approximated from a location (latitude, longitude) and day of year. As of August 2020, Hebcal.com calculates zmanim (halachic times) using an algorithm published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA solar calculator is based on equations from Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus.

The sunrise and sunset results are theoretically accurate to within a minute for locations between +/- 72° latitude, and within 10 minutes outside of those latitudes. However, due to variations in atmospheric composition, temperature, pressure and conditions, observed values may vary from calculations.

Solar Calculation Details, NOAA

Differences of 1-2 minutes between Hebcal and other sources publishing candle lighting times or sunset times are expected. Remember that candle lighting times can only be approximated based on location.

Here are a few common reasons why you may see differences in candle lighting times:

1. Different minhag on when to light candles

By default, candle lighting time is 18 minutes before sundown (40 minutes for Jerusalem, 30 minutes for Haifa and Zikhron Ya’akov) on Erev Shabbat (Friday) and Erev Chag (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shmini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Pesach, Shavuot).

Other sources may use 20 minutes before sundown. Hebcal gives an option to specify a different number of minutes before sunset if you don’t follow the 18-minute minhag.

2. Different sunrise/sunset calculation engines

The sunset calculator we use on Hebcal.com as of August 2020 uses an algorithm published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hebcal’s NOAA algorithm is implemented in JavaScript using double-precision floating point arithmetic. Other sources may use a slightly different algorithm, for example from the United States Naval Observatory (USNO).

Even if the other source also uses the NOAA algorithm, the implementation could differ slightly; there are many constants and opportunities to round and truncate which could result in slight differences in the final calculated sunset time for a given day and location. For example, in December 2023, Hebcal switched to a different NOAA implementation that optionally supports elevation (more on this below). Even when the elevation feature is disabled, this alternate calculation engine resulted in small differences (often less than 10 seconds) versus Hebcal’s previous NOAA engine.

3. Different latitude/longitude definitions for a given city

Since 2013, Hebcal.com has been using lat/long definitions from GeoNames.org, which is available under a Creative Commons license. For the USA, we purchase a commercial ZIP code database from zip-codes.com that provides latitude and longitude for the “center” of each zipcode. For very large cities, the sunset at the east side of the city might be a minute earlier than the west side of the city.

4. Deliberate rounding down (or up)

Hebcal rounds candle lighting (Friday) times down to the nearest minute, and rounds Havdalah times up to the nearest minute. To be more precise, we use the floor minute for candle-lighting, and we use the standard mathematical rounding rule for Havdalah. The idea here is that it’s better to display candle-lighting time as much as 59 seconds earlier than strictly necessary, and for Havdalah it’s better to wait an additional 30 seconds to end Shabbat/yontiff.

For example, if the exact candle lighting time from the sunset engine (including seconds) was at 20:02:31 or even 20:02:59, Hebcal displays candle-lighting as 20:02.

On the other hand, if the Havdalah calculation is 21:17:29, Hebcal will display 21:17. If it were 21:17:30 through 21:17:59, Hebcal displays 21:18.

5. Havdalah minutes past sundown versus sun degrees below horizion

As of August 2020, options for Havdalah times have also changed. Hebcal now offers an option to use tzeit hakochavim, the point when 3 small stars are observable in the night sky with the naked eye (sun 8.5° below the horizon). This option is an excellent default for most places on the planet. We also offer the option to use a fixed number of minutes past sundown. Typically one would enter 42 min for three medium-sized stars, 50 min for three small stars, 72 min for Rabbeinu Tam, or 0 to suppress Havdalah times.

6. Elevation above sea level

As of December 2023, the Hebcal sunrise/sunset algorithm has been enhanced to optionally include the elevation of the location. If selected, Hebcal will include the city’s elevation in the calculation of all sunrise/sunset based zmanim. Elevation will affect the result only for calculations that are a fixed number of minutes before or after sunrise/sunset.

For cities at a high elevation (for example Denver Colorado or Mexico City), including elevation above sea level can change the estimated sunset time by as much as 7 minutes. If you want to learn more, our friends at KosherJava have a short article entitled How Much Earlier is Sunrise on Mount Everest Due to Elevation?

Degree-based zmanim (for example the “nightfall” option for Havdalah, or the start time of minor fasts at Alot haShachar) are driven by the amount of light in the sky and are therefore not impacted by elevation.

To enable the elevation option, select the “Include elevation in sunrise/sunset estimate” radio button as displayed in the screenshot below:

Conclusion

Lastly, remember that the NOAA algorithm can only approximate the candle-lighting times for your location. If you ever have any doubts about Hebcal’s times, consult your local halachic authority.

Hebcal offers a way to specify candle-lighting times location by latitude and longitude for remote or less-populated areas.

Hebcal supports already over 45,000 world cities. Just search for the name of any world city with population 5,000+. However, if you can’t find what you’re looking for in our location database, here’s how you could find candle-lighting times for a specific location.

Example: Ixiamas, Bolivia.

1. Go to the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names at http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/
2. Type “Ixiamas” in the Find box and click “Search” button
3. Click on the link that says “Ixiamas… inhabited place”
4. Note the latitude/longitude represented in “degrees minutes direction” (in the example of Ixiamas, La Paz, Bolivia it is Lat: 13 45 S and Long: 068 10 W) and write this information down on a sheet of paper
5. Visit the Hebcal Custom Calendar latitude/longitude page at https://www.hebcal.com/hebcal?c=on;geo=pos
6. Type the latitude and longitude into the form (13 degrees, 45 minutes South Latitude, 68 degrees 10 minutes West Longitude)
7. Select the Time zone option specific to your location (see Wikipedia’s List of tz database time zones)
8. Click “Get Calendar” button at the bottom of the form