Maricopa, AZ Night Sky Brightness
What the night sky looks like over Maricopa, AZ
Satellite radiance puts Maricopa in the suburban band. Light dome dominates much of the sky. Only the brightest stars and planets stand out clearly. Only 52.7% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Maricopa.
The number comes from orbit, not a stargazer's logbook, so treat it as an estimate of sky glow rather than a certified Bortle class - the Bortle scale guide covers why.
How far Maricopa is from a meaningfully darker sky
17 miles from Maricopa, straight-line, sits Casa Grande, AZ, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Maricopa's own suburban band.
Casa Grande, AZ is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
Maricopa against the rest of the dataset
Maricopa, AZ has a population of about 76,654, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Among all 3,206 cities here, Maricopa ranks 1,682 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured, by the sampling the methodology guide documents.