Mission Viejo, CA's night sky, measured from orbit

Mission Viejo'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 27.1% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Mission Viejo.

Note the source: a satellite reading of upward light, not a visual Bortle scale reading. The two measure related but different things.

The nearest darker sky to Mission Viejo

Laguna Beach, CA, about 8 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the rural band, one step darker than Mission Viejo. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.

Laguna Beach, 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 Mission Viejo compares nationally

Mission Viejo, CA has a population of about 91,601, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Mission Viejo places 865 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.