Wilmington, NC Night Sky Brightness
What the night sky looks like over Wilmington, NC
Satellite radiance puts Wilmington in the urban band. Sky glow overhead most nights. Typically only planets, the Moon, and a handful of the brightest stars are visible. Only 85.9% of the 3,206 cities measured here read darker than Wilmington.
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 Wilmington
9 miles from Wilmington, straight-line, sits Leland, NC, the nearest city here with a darker sky than Wilmington's own urban band.
Leland, NC is itself still a measured city, not a designated dark-sky park, this only compares against the 3,206 places this dataset covers.
Wilmington against the rest of the dataset
Wilmington, NC has a population of about 125,284, one of 3,206 US cities of 10,000 or more residents in this dataset. Among all 3,206 cities here, Wilmington ranks 2,738 from darkest to brightest, 1 being the darkest measured, by the sampling the methodology guide documents.