Ottawa, KS's night sky, measured from orbit

Ottawa 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. Ottawa's sky is brighter than 27.8% of the 3,206 cities in this dataset.

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 Ottawa

Lenexa, KS, about 35 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the rural band, one step darker than Ottawa. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.

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

How Ottawa compares nationally

Ottawa, KS has a population of about 12,733, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Ottawa places 887 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.