Durham, NC's night sky, measured from orbit

Satellite radiance puts Durham 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 86.3% 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.

The nearest darker sky to Durham

9 miles from Durham, straight-line, sits Chapel Hill, NC, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Durham's own urban band.

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

How Durham compares nationally

Durham, NC has a population of about 301,870, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Durham places 2,751 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.