What the night sky looks like over Melbourne, FL

Melbourne 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 11.7% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Melbourne.

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.

How far Melbourne is from a meaningfully darker sky

Cocoa Beach, FL, about 15 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the dark sky band, one step darker than Melbourne. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.

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

Melbourne against the rest of the dataset

About 87,561 people live in Melbourne, FL, sized enough to appear in this dataset of 3,206 incorporated US cities. Among all 3,206 cities here, Melbourne ranks 375 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured.