What the night sky looks like over Bellingham, WA

Satellite radiance puts Bellingham in the urban band. Sky glow overhead most nights. Typically only planets, the Moon, and a handful of the brightest stars are visible. That's brighter than 85.9% of the 3,206 US cities in this dataset.

The number comes from orbit, not a stargazer's logbook, so treat it as an estimate of sky glow rather than a certified Bortle class.

How far Bellingham is from a meaningfully darker sky

Ferndale, WA, about 9 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the suburban edge band, one step darker than Bellingham. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.

Ferndale, WA is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.

Bellingham against the rest of the dataset

Bellingham, WA has a population of about 95,860, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Among all 3,206 cities here, Bellingham ranks 2,739 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured.