St. Joseph, MO Night Sky Brightness
What the night sky looks like over St. Joseph, MO
St. Joseph reads as suburban edge on this dataset's scale. A noticeable glow near the horizon. Brighter stars and constellations are easy to pick out; the Milky Way is washed out. Only 38.2% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than St. Joseph.
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 - the Bortle scale guide covers why.
Where to go for a darker sky near St. Joseph
Smithville, MO, about 28 miles away as the crow flies, measures in the rural band, one step darker than St. Joseph. Actual driving distance will run longer than that straight-line figure.
Smithville, MO is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
St. Joseph against the rest of the dataset
About 71,098 people live in St. Joseph, MO, sized enough to appear in this dataset of 3,206 incorporated US cities. Among all 3,206 cities here, St. Joseph ranks 1,220 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured, by the sampling the methodology guide documents.