Choghadiya in Chennai — slot lengths, sunrise anchor and the full grid

Chennai’s sun and clock agree more closely than anywhere else here — solar noon lags by only 8.9 minutes. The counterintuitive result is the earliest midsummer sunset of the eleven cities: 18:38 on the longest day, nearly an hour before Rajkot’s 19:34. Its slots are steady at 1h 25m to 1h 37m.

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In Chennai, Tamil Nadu, a daylight choghadiya runs 1h 25m to 1h 37m, sunrise moves 54m across the year, and solar noon sits 8.9 minutes behind the clock. All three computed at 13.08°N 80.27°E.

Chennai is where two effects that usually work against each other line up. It is the furthest east of these eleven cities, so its sun runs ahead of the clock; and it is the closest to the equator, so its summer days are short by Indian standards.

Both push sunset earlier. The result is that on the longest day of the year, Chennai gets dark before almost anywhere else in the country — 18:38, against Delhi’s 19:22 and Rajkot’s 19:34.

People who move to Chennai from the north notice this immediately and usually attribute it to the timezone. It is half the timezone and half the latitude, and the two are separable.

Why the longest day ends first in Chennai

Take the two effects apart. Chennai is 2.23 degrees west of the IST meridian, worth 8.9 minutes of lag — the smallest in this set, so on longitude alone Chennai should have the LATEST-looking sunrise-to-sunset window relative to the sun, not the earliest clock sunset. What overturns that is day length: at 13.08°N, Chennai’s June daylight is only 12h 54m against Delhi’s 13h 58m.

Combine them and the arithmetic is: Chennai’s solar noon falls at 12:09, and half of 12h 54m is 6h 27m, which puts sunset at 18:36 — within two minutes of the computed 18:38, the remainder being the equation of time. Delhi’s solar noon is at 12:21 and half its daylight is 6h 59m, giving 19:20 against a computed 19:22.

So the "early Chennai sunset" is genuinely a latitude story wearing a timezone costume. And for choghadiya it has a concrete consequence: the eighth daylight slot here ends before 19:00 even at midsummer, which is when much of the rest of India still has an hour of its own grid left to run.

How long one Chennai choghadiya is, through the year

Sunrise, sunset and the resulting eighth at the year's four turning points, computed for 2026.

Chennai sits at 13.08°N, and latitude is the only thing that sets slot length. Its daylight runs from 11h 21m on 22 December to 12h 54m on 21 June — a swing of 1h 33m — so one eighth of it moves between 1h 25m and 1h 37m. That is 12 minutes of variation in the same named slot.

Date	Sunrise	Sunset	Daylight	One day slot	One night slot
March equinox (20 March)	06:13	18:20	12h 07m	1h 31m	1h 29m
June solstice (21 June)	05:44	18:38	12h 54m	1h 37m	1h 23m
September equinox (22 September)	05:58	18:05	12h 07m	1h 31m	1h 29m
December solstice (21 December)	06:26	17:47	11h 21m	1h 25m	1h 35m

Across the whole year a Chennai daylight slot runs 1h 25m to 1h 37m and a night slot 1h 23m to 1h 35m. At the equinoxes the two are equal — that is what an equinox is.

Where Chennai's grid sits on the clock, and why

Sunrise in Chennai runs from 05:41 on 1 June to 06:36 on 24 January. That is 54m of movement in the first boundary of the day, and since every later boundary is measured from it, the whole grid travels the same distance.

Longitude adds a second offset that never changes. At 80.27°E, 2.23° west of the 82.5°E timezone meridian, solar noon in Chennai falls at about 12:09 rather than 12:00 — 8.9 minutes after the clock, on every date of the year. Against 1h 37m and 1h 25m slots that is roughly a 9-to-10 per cent share of one slot, borrowed from a neighbouring city's table and never repaid.

Measure	Value
Earliest sunrise	05:41 on 1 June
Latest sunrise	06:36 on 24 January
Longest daylight	12h 54m on 21 June
Shortest daylight	11h 21m on 22 December
Annual day-length swing	1h 33m
Solar noon vs clock noon	+8.9 minutes

The full daylight grid for Chennai on 21 June

Sunday, sunrise 05:44, sunset 18:38 — the year's longest daylight and therefore its longest slots.

12h 54m of daylight, divided by eight, gives 97 minutes a slot. Sunday is ruled by Sun, so the sequence opens on Udveg at 05:44 and closes on Udveg at 18:38 — the eighth slot repeating the first, as it does on every weekday. Of the eight, 4 are favourable.

Slot	Choghadiya	Lord	Clock time in Chennai	Reading
1	Udveg	Sun	05:44 – 07:21	avoid for starts
2	Chal	Venus	07:21 – 08:57	favourable
3	Labh	Mercury	08:57 – 10:34	favourable
4	Amrit	Moon	10:34 – 12:11	favourable
5	Kaal	Saturn	12:11 – 13:47	avoid for starts
6	Shubh	Jupiter	13:47 – 15:24	favourable
7	Rog	Mars	15:24 – 17:01	avoid for starts
8	Udveg	Sun	17:01 – 18:38	avoid for starts

Times computed from NOAA sunrise/sunset at this city's coordinates. Rounded to the minute for display.

The same eight slots on 22 December, compressed

Tuesday, sunrise 06:27, sunset 17:48: 11h 21m of daylight, 1h 33m less than 21 June had. Each slot has shrunk to 85 minutes from 97, and sunrise itself has moved 43m later.

Compare the third row of each grid and the whole argument of this page is in one line: Labh ran 08:57–10:34 in 21 June and Chal runs 09:17–10:42 in 22 December. Same city, same position in the grid, no overlap at all.

Slot	Choghadiya	Lord	Clock time in Chennai	Reading
1	Rog	Mars	06:27 – 07:52	avoid for starts
2	Udveg	Sun	07:52 – 09:17	avoid for starts
3	Chal	Venus	09:17 – 10:42	favourable
4	Labh	Mercury	10:42 – 12:07	favourable
5	Amrit	Moon	12:07 – 13:33	favourable
6	Kaal	Saturn	13:33 – 14:58	avoid for starts
7	Shubh	Jupiter	14:58 – 16:23	favourable
8	Rog	Mars	16:23 – 17:48	avoid for starts

The night that follows 21 June in Chennai

Sunset at 18:38 to the next sunrise is 11h 06m, so each night slot is 83 minutes — 13 minutes shorter than that same day's daylight slots, because midsummer is when the night is the compressed half. In 22 December the relationship inverts and Chennai's night slots reach 1h 35m.

The sequence is not the day sequence continued: it starts on Shubh, ruled by Jupiter, where the daylight had started on Udveg. The slots after midnight still belong to Sunday, because the vedic day turns over at sunrise and not at 00:00.

Slot	Choghadiya	Lord	Clock time in Chennai	Reading
1	Shubh	Jupiter	18:38 – 20:01	favourable
2	Amrit	Moon	20:01 – 21:24	favourable
3	Chal	Venus	21:24 – 22:47	favourable
4	Rog	Mars	22:47 – 00:11	avoid for starts
5	Kaal	Saturn	00:11 – 01:34	avoid for starts
6	Labh	Mercury	01:34 – 02:57	favourable
7	Udveg	Sun	02:57 – 04:21	avoid for starts
8	Shubh	Jupiter	04:21 – 05:44	favourable

Times after 24:00 are shown on the following morning's clock; the row still belongs to the previous weekday.

Chennai against the other cities in this cluster

The two numbers that make one Indian city’s choghadiya different from another’s: how far its solar noon sits from clock noon, and how much its daylight swings across the year.

City	Solar noon vs clock	Annual day-length swing	Daylight slot range
Ahmedabad	+39.7 min	2h 50m	1h 20m – 1h 42m
Mumbai	+38.5 min	2h 18m	1h 22m – 1h 40m
New Delhi	+21.2 min	3h 39m	1h 17m – 1h 45m
Surat	+38.7 min	2h 35m	1h 21m – 1h 41m
Rajkot	+46.8 min	2h 44m	1h 21m – 1h 41m
Vadodara	+37.3 min	2h 44m	1h 21m – 1h 41m
Pune	+34.6 min	2h 14m	1h 23m – 1h 39m
Bangalore	+19.6 min	1h 32m	1h 25m – 1h 37m
Hyderabad	+16.1 min	2h 05m	1h 23m – 1h 39m
Jaipur	+26.9 min	3h 23m	1h 18m – 1h 44m
Chennai (this page)	+8.9 min	1h 33m	1h 25m – 1h 37m

A positive offset means the sun peaks after the clock says noon. All eleven cities are on one timezone, which is why the column has a 38-minute spread.

Building the grid by hand, from three numbers

Three facts produce the whole table: the weekday, the sunrise and the sunset. Nothing else is needed, and nothing else is used.

Step	Value
Sunrise and sunset	05:44 and 18:38 — 12h 54m of daylight
Divide by eight	774 ÷ 8 = 97 minutes, or 1h 37m per slot
Sunday's opener	Udveg — the choghadiya of Sun, which rules Sunday
Walk the fixed cycle	Udveg → Chal → Labh → Amrit → Kaal → Shubh → Rog → Udveg
Third boundary, as a check	05:44 + 2 × 1h 37m = 08:57

The third slot on 21 June in Chennai is Labh, running 08:57 to 10:34, and the eighth is Udveg from 17:01. Every boundary follows from the same division, and the same three facts on any other date give that date's grid.

Use the city's own sunrise, never a neighbour's. The eleven cities in this cluster span 37.9 minutes of solar time on an identical clock.

Frequently asked

Why does the sun set so early in Chennai?

Two reasons that reinforce each other. Chennai is the furthest east of these eleven cities, so its solar noon comes early — only 8.9 minutes behind clock noon. And at 13.08°N its midsummer daylight is just 12h 54m, over an hour shorter than Delhi’s. Together they put the longest day’s sunset at 18:38.

How long is a choghadiya in Chennai?

Between 1h 25m and 1h 37m of daylight, and 1h 23m to 1h 35m at night — the same narrow band as Bangalore, because the two cities are at nearly the same latitude. The annual variation in a single slot is about 12 minutes.

Is Chennai’s choghadiya table valid for the rest of Tamil Nadu?

For the coastal belt, close enough. Inland and southern Tamil Nadu run a few minutes later on the clock as you go west, and slightly steadier as you go south. The differences are of the order of minutes, not slots.

What this page can NOT tell you

• These are geometric sunrise and sunset times at the city centre. A tradition that uses the visible sunrise over a real horizon — hills, buildings, haze — will differ, and it is not wrong to.
• The figures are computed for a fixed reference year so this page cannot go stale on the shelf. Sunrise repeats to within seconds across years, so they hold; they are still not a substitute for looking up an actual date.
• Choghadiya carries no personal component. Your chart, dasha and transits are absent from every number here, and two people in this city read exactly the same table.
• The favourable / avoid labels are conventional and they do not predict outcomes. They rank a preference between otherwise equal moments, which is a much smaller claim than the word "auspicious" usually carries.
• Chennai’s eastern horizon is the Bay of Bengal, which is the rare Indian case where computed and visible sunrise nearly agree. Sunset is over land and buildings, so the visible one is earlier than the figure on this page.

Choghadiya is a folk-electional convention, not a prediction. It labels slices of the day by tradition; it does not know what you are doing, who you are, or how it turned out. Treat a label as a preference, and never as permission or prohibition.

How AskSoma computes and what we refuse to claim · Engine: NOAA solar position (sunrise/sunset), ±1 minute against published almanac times · Ayanamsa: not used — choghadiya is a sunrise-to-sunset division, with no sidereal component · Content reviewed 2026-08-08