San Diego, CA Night Sky Brightness
How dark is the sky in San Diego, CA?
San Diego's sky measures urban here. Sky glow overhead most nights. Typically only planets, the Moon, and a handful of the brightest stars are visible. That's brighter than 86.2% of the 3,206 US cities in this dataset.
Worth remembering: this is satellite radiance, not a ground observation. A true Bortle rating needs a human eye at night, this is the closest large-scale substitute, covered fully in the Bortle scale guide.
The nearest darker sky to San Diego
8 miles from San Diego, straight-line, sits Santee, CA, the nearest city here with a darker sky than San Diego's own urban band.
Santee, CA is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
San Diego against the rest of the dataset
About 1,404,452 people live in San Diego, CA, sized enough to appear in this dataset of 3,206 incorporated US cities. Ranked against the other 3,206 cities here by the methodology guide's own sampling, San Diego comes in at 2,748, darkest to brightest.