Madison, AL's night sky, measured from orbit

Madison's sky measures suburban edge here. A noticeable glow near the horizon. Brighter stars and constellations are easy to pick out; the Milky Way is washed out. Only 15% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Madison.

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 Madison

41 miles from Madison, straight-line, sits Scottsboro, AL, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Madison's own suburban edge band.

Scottsboro, 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 Madison compares nationally

About 64,029 people live in Madison, AL, sized enough to appear in this dataset of 3,206 incorporated US cities. Madison places 480 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.