Box Elder, SD Night Sky Brightness
What the night sky looks like over Box Elder, SD
Box Elder reads as rural on this dataset's scale. Little local light dome. Most stars are visible; the Milky Way is faint but often findable away from town lights. That's brighter than 9.3% 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 - the Bortle scale guide covers why.
The nearest darker sky to Box Elder
The closest place in this dataset with a meaningfully darker sky is Evans, CO, roughly 273 miles away in a straight line, rated dark sky. Road distance will be more.
Evans, CO is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
Box Elder against the rest of the dataset
Box Elder, SD has a population of about 13,887, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Among all 3,206 cities here, Box Elder ranks 297 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured, by the sampling the methodology guide documents.