Paducah, KY Night Sky Brightness
Paducah, KY's night sky, measured from orbit
Satellite radiance puts Paducah in the suburban edge band. A noticeable glow near the horizon. Brighter stars and constellations are easy to pick out; the Milky Way is washed out. That's brighter than 19.3% of the 3,206 US 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, explained in the Bortle scale guide.
The nearest darker sky to Paducah
The closest place in this dataset with a meaningfully darker sky is Clarksville, TN, roughly 80 miles away in a straight line, rated rural. Road distance will be more.
Clarksville, TN is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
How Paducah compares nationally
About 26,712 people live in Paducah, KY, sized enough to appear in this dataset of 3,206 incorporated US cities. Paducah's position, 615 of 3,206, darkest to brightest, comes from the sampling method the methodology guide sets out.