Gaithersburg, MD: how dark is the sky here?

Gaithersburg's sky measures urban here. Sky glow overhead most nights. Typically only planets, the Moon, and a handful of the brightest stars are visible. Gaithersburg's sky is brighter than 88.1% of the 3,206 cities in this dataset.

This comes from a satellite measuring light radiating upward, not a person's eyes on the ground, so it isn't the same as a Bortle class, though the two track each other closely.

The nearest darker sky to Gaithersburg

Rockville, MD, about 5 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the suburban band, one step darker than Gaithersburg. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.

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

How Gaithersburg compares nationally

Gaithersburg, MD has a population of about 70,686, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Gaithersburg places 2,810 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.