Lake Forest, IL's night sky, measured from orbit

Lake Forest reads as suburban edge on this dataset's scale. A noticeable glow near the horizon. Brighter stars and constellations are easy to pick out; the Milky Way is washed out. Only 13.5% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Lake Forest.

Note the source: a satellite reading of upward light, not a visual Bortle scale reading. The two measure related but different things.

How far Lake Forest is from a meaningfully darker sky

14 miles from Lake Forest, straight-line, sits Beach Park, IL, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Lake Forest's own suburban edge band.

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

How Lake Forest compares nationally

Lake Forest, IL has a population of about 19,642, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Lake Forest places 430 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.