Merced, CA Night Sky Brightness
Merced, CA: how dark is the sky here?
Merced reads as suburban on this dataset's scale. Light dome dominates much of the sky. Only the brightest stars and planets stand out clearly. Merced's sky is brighter than 73% 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 - see the Bortle scale guide for where they can disagree.
The nearest darker sky to Merced
8 miles from Merced, straight-line, sits Atwater, CA, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Merced's own suburban band.
Atwater, CA is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
How Merced compares nationally
Merced, CA has a population of about 96,073, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Merced places 2,327 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order, ranked by the method in the methodology guide.