A sunshine recorder has: a lens that emits, as projection light, natural light incident from half of the celestial sphere; a sensor that photoelectrically converts the projection light projected onto a light receiving surface, and outputs the photoelectrically converted projection light; and a determination circuit that determines the presence or absence of sunshine on the basis of an output of the sensor, wherein the sensor has a plurality of detection areas on the light receiving surface and is configured to output a signal corresponding to the intensity of the projection light incident on each of the detection areas, and the determination circuit removes a scattered light component included in the projection light on the basis of a difference operation of the signal output from each of the detection areas to extract only a direct light component to be included in the projection light at the time of incidence of sunlight.