What the night sky looks like over Salem, OR

Salem's sky measures urban here. Sky glow overhead most nights. Typically only planets, the Moon, and a handful of the brightest stars are visible. Only 85.5% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Salem.

The number comes from orbit, not a stargazer's logbook, so treat it as an estimate of sky glow rather than a certified Bortle class.

How far Salem is from a meaningfully darker sky

5 miles from Salem, straight-line, sits Keizer, OR, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Salem's own urban band.

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

Salem against the rest of the dataset

Salem, OR has a population of about 180,406, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Among all 3,206 cities here, Salem ranks 2,726 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured.