Rancho Santa Margarita, CA: how dark is the sky here?

Satellite radiance puts Rancho Santa Margarita in the urban band. Sky glow overhead most nights. Typically only planets, the Moon, and a handful of the brightest stars are visible. Only 90.4% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Rancho Santa Margarita.

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.

The nearest darker sky to Rancho Santa Margarita

Mission Viejo, CA, about 4 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the suburban edge band, one step darker than Rancho Santa Margarita. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.

Mission Viejo, 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 Rancho Santa Margarita compares nationally

Rancho Santa Margarita, CA has a population of about 46,353, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Rancho Santa Margarita places 2,881 of 3,206 cities in this dataset's darkest-to-brightest order.