Positive latitude is north, negative is south. Positive longitude is east, negative is west. To find your coordinates, open any map application, tap your location, and copy the two numbers shown.
Hours between local time and UTC, for example 1 for Paris in winter, -5 for New York in winter. Adjust it yourself for daylight saving time.
What separates golden hour from blue hour
Both windows are defined by how far the sun sits below or above the horizon, not by the clock. Golden hour covers the stretch when the sun's elevation is roughly between -4 and +6 degrees, low enough that its light travels through more atmosphere and loses the blue end of the spectrum, which is what produces the warm, low-contrast light photographers look for. Blue hour sits just outside that range, when the sun is between -6 and -4 degrees, fully below the horizon but still lighting the sky from underneath, which is why the light in a blue hour photograph comes from the sky rather than from direct sunlight.
Why the sun's direction matters as much as the time
Knowing that golden hour starts at a given time only tells you when to be ready, not where to stand. The azimuth, the compass direction of the sun measured clockwise from north, tells you which side of a subject will be lit and where the shadows will fall. A building or a mountain that faces east catches the warm light at sunrise and sits in its own shadow at sunset, and the reverse is true for anything facing west, so checking the azimuth before a shoot avoids arriving at a location that turns out to face the wrong way for the light that day.
Why the golden hour is not the same length everywhere
The sun's elevation changes at a different rate depending on latitude and season, which is why golden hour can last twenty minutes in the tropics and well over an hour near the poles in summer. Close to the equator the sun climbs and drops almost straight up and down, so it crosses the golden hour band quickly. At higher latitudes, especially around the summer solstice, the sun's path is much more angled relative to the horizon, so it lingers longer within that same band of elevation angles.