Rifle, CO Night Sky Brightness
Rifle, CO's night sky, measured from orbit
Rifle'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. That's brighter than 13.1% 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.
How far Rifle is from a meaningfully darker sky
23 miles from Rifle, straight-line, sits Glenwood Springs, CO, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Rifle's own suburban edge band.
Glenwood Springs, CO is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
How Rifle compares nationally
Rifle, CO has a population of about 10,663, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Rifle's position, 418 of 3,206, darkest to brightest, comes from the sampling method the methodology guide sets out.