Sunset and sunrise times in Nairobi, Kenya

Sitting on the western side of its time zone puts solar noon at 12:34, a full 35 minutes after twelve o'clock, and drags the whole day — sunrise, noon and sunset — along with it.

At 1.3°S the sun cuts through the twilight band at an angle, so darkness takes 21 minutes to arrive: 3 minutes shorter than today's 24-minute median.

Between solstices the sunset walks 47° across the horizon — WSW in midwinter, WNW in midsummer — which is why a fixed viewpoint works only part of the year. Today's bearing is W.

Sunset drifts 11 seconds earlier each day this month — 5 minutes from the first of August to the last.

Twice a year the sun passes directly overhead here — on 17 March and 26 September — and vertical objects cast almost no shadow at solar noon. The next one is in 5 weeks.

The longest and shortest days of the year differ by just 9 minutes here. In London the same gap is around 8.8 hours. That is about 59 times less seasonal variation.

At 1,684 m the horizon sits 1.42° lower than at sea level, so the sun sets about 5.8 minutes later here than the standard tables suggest — roughly 11.6 minutes of extra daylight across the day.

Around a solstice the day length flattens out, and that is where the calendar is now: the shortest day is 21 June, 2 months ago, and sunset moves a mere 4 minutes earlier in the coming fortnight.