DarkSkyCheck

Burien, WA Night Sky Brightness

What the night sky looks like over Burien, WA

Suburban
20.1 nW/cm2/sr

Satellite radiance puts Burien in the suburban band. Light dome dominates much of the sky. Only the brightest stars and planets stand out clearly. That's brighter than 44.2% 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 Burien

6 miles from Burien, straight-line, sits Des Moines, WA, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Burien's own suburban band.

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

Burien against the rest of the dataset

Burien, WA has a population of about 52,046, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Among all 3,206 cities here, Burien ranks 1,410 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured, by the sampling the methodology guide documents.