Coachella, CA's night sky, measured from orbit

Satellite radiance puts Coachella in the rural band. Little local light dome. Most stars are visible; the Milky Way is faint but often findable away from town lights. That's brighter than 3.7% of the 3,206 US cities in this dataset.

Note the source: a satellite reading of upward light, not a visual Bortle scale reading. The two measure related but different things.

Where to go for a darker sky near Coachella

Banning, CA, about 47 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the dark sky band, one step darker than Coachella. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.

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

How Coachella compares nationally

Coachella, CA has a population of about 45,165, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Coachella places 118 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.