Durham, NC Night Sky Brightness
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, explained in the Bortle scale guide.
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's position, 2,751 of 3,206, darkest to brightest, comes from the sampling method the methodology guide sets out.