Gardendale, AL Night Sky Brightness
Gardendale, AL's night sky, measured from orbit
Satellite radiance puts Gardendale in the rural band. Little local light dome. Most stars are visible; the Milky Way is faint but often findable away from town lights. Only 7.5% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Gardendale.
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.
Where to go for a darker sky near Gardendale
22 miles from Gardendale, straight-line, sits Hueytown, AL, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Gardendale's own rural band.
Hueytown, AL is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
How Gardendale compares nationally
About 16,444 people live in Gardendale, AL, sized enough to appear in this dataset of 3,206 incorporated US cities. Gardendale's position, 241 of 3,206, darkest to brightest, comes from the sampling method the methodology guide sets out.