Jacksonville, NC's night sky, measured from orbit

Jacksonville reads as rural on this dataset's scale. Little local light dome. Most stars are visible; the Milky Way is faint but often findable away from town lights. Only 9.9% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Jacksonville.

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 Jacksonville

142 miles from Jacksonville, straight-line, sits Suffolk, VA, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Jacksonville's own rural band.

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

How Jacksonville compares nationally

Jacksonville, NC counts roughly 70,840 residents, among the 3,206 US cities this site tracks. Jacksonville places 315 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.