Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's horizon.^[1] This morning twilight period will last until sunrise (when the Sun's upper limb breaks the horizon), when direct sunlight outshines the diffused light.

"Dawn" derives from the Old English verb dagian, "to become day".

Dawn begins with the first sight of lightness in the morning, and continues until the Sun breaks the horizon. The morning twilight is divided in three phases, which are determined by the angular distance of the centre of the Sun (degrees below the horizon) in the morning. These are astronomical, nautical and civil twilight.

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The duration of the morning twilight (i.e. between astronomical dawn and sunrise) varies greatly depending on the observer's latitude: from a little over 70 minutes at the Equator, to many hours in the polar regions.^[6][7]

In Islam, Zodiacal Light (or "false dawn") is referred to as False Morning (Subhe-Kazeb, Persian صبح کاذب) and Astronomical dawn is called Sahar (سحر) or True Morning (Subhe-Sadeq,Persian صبح صادق), and it is the time of first prayer of the day, and the beginning of the daily fast during Ramadan.^[8]

Many Indo-European mythologies have a dawn goddess, separate from the male Solar deity, her name deriving from PIE *h₂ausos-, derivations of which include Greek Eos, Roman Aurora and Indian Ushas. Also related is Lithuanian Aušrinė, and possibly a Germanic *Austrōn- (whence the term Easter).

In Sioux mythology, Anpao is an entity with two faces.^{[citation needed]}

The Hindu dawn deity Ushas is female, whereas Surya, the Sun, and Aruṇa, the Sun's charioteer, are male. Ushas is one of the most prominent Rigvedic deities. The time of dawn is also referred to as the brahmamuhurta (Brahma is the god of creation and muhurta is a Hindu time of the day), and is considered an ideal time to perform spiritual activities, including meditation and yoga. In some parts of India, both Usha and Pratyusha (dusk) are worshipped along with the Sun during the festival of Chhath.^{[citation needed]}

Jesus in the Bible is often symbolized by dawn in the morning, also when Jesus rose on the third day it happened during the morning.^[9] Prime is the fixed time of prayer of the traditional Divine Office (Canonical Hours) in Christian liturgy, said at the first hour of daylight. Associated with Jesus, in Christianity, Christian burials take place in the direction of dawn.^{[citation needed]}

In Judaism, the question of how to calculate dawn (Hebrew Alos/Alot HaShachar, or Alos/Alot) is posed by the Talmud,^[10] as it has many ramifications for Jewish law (such as the possible start time for certain daytime commandments, like prayer). The simple reading of the Talmud is that dawn takes place 72 minutes before sunrise. Others, including the Vilna Gaon, have the understanding that the Talmud's timeframe for dawn was referring specifically to an equinox day in Mesopotamia, and is therefore teaching that dawn should be calculated daily as commencing when the Sun is 16.1 degrees below the horizon. The longstanding practice among most Sephardic Jews is to follow the first opinion, while many Ashkenazi Jews follow the latter view.^{[citation needed]}

• L'Aurore by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1881
• L'aurore, Mer du Nord by Guillaume Vogels, c. 1877

• Homer uses the stock epithet "rosy-fingered Dawn" frequently in The Iliad and The Odyssey
• An aubade (Occitan Alba, German Tagelied) is a song about lovers having to separate at daybreak
• Aurora Musis amica (Dawn is a friend to the Muse), in Epigrammata Disticha Poetarum Latinorum, Veterum Et Recentum, Nobiliora (1642) by Barthold Nihus^[11]
• The Dawn, volume 1 on Jean-Christophe written by Romain Rolland
• Dawn, a novel written by Henry Rider Haggard, published in 1884
• "Dawn", a poem written by Rupert Brooke published in The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke
• "Dawn", a poem written by Richard Aldington
• "Dawn", a poem written by Emily Dickinson
• "Dawn", a poem written by Francis Ledwidge
• "Dawn", a poem written by John Masefield
• "Dawn", a poem written by William Carlos Williams^[12]
• I Greet the Dawn: Poems, a book of poetry written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, published January 1, 1978, by Atheneum Books
• "Dawn", a four-line poem from Lyrics of Lowly Life, a book of poetry written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, originally published in 1896. This poem was published again in The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, the 1913 collection of his work--

An angel, robed in spotless white,

Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night.

Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone.

Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.

-Dawn by Paul Laurence Dunbar

• Dusk
• Sky
• Sunrise
• Sunset
• Twilight
• Dawn chorus (electromagnetic)