McAlester, OK: how dark is the sky here?

McAlester 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. McAlester's sky is brighter than 15.8% of the 3,206 cities in this dataset.

This comes from a satellite measuring light radiating upward, not a person's eyes on the ground, so it isn't the same as a Bortle class, though the two track each other closely.

How far McAlester is from a meaningfully darker sky

74 miles from McAlester, straight-line, sits Shawnee, OK, the nearest city here with a darker sky than McAlester's own suburban edge band.

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

How McAlester compares nationally

About 18,108 people live in McAlester, OK, sized enough to appear in this dataset of 3,206 incorporated US cities. McAlester places 503 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.