How dark is the sky in Victoria?
Sky darkness for 19 towns and parks in Victoria, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 8 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Croajingolong National Park (21.94, Bortle 2), the brightest Melbourne (17.37, Bortle 8). Milky Way season in Victoria runs February to October: on moonless nights the bright core stands clear of the horizon, climbing to about 85° at its highest.
Numbers like 21.95 or 16.97 are the brightness of the sky overhead on a clear, moonless night, in mag/arcsec². The scale runs backwards: a lower number means a brighter sky, from about 22 for a natural sky to about 17 in a city center.
How the readings are made
Darkest skies in Victoria
- Croajingolong National ParkBortle 221.94
- Little Desert National ParkBortle 221.93
- Grampians (Gariwerd) National ParkBortle 321.89
- Hattah - Kulkyne National ParkBortle 321.89
- Wilsons Promontory National ParkBortle 321.86
Among the places on this site. Plenty of land between them is just as dark, with no town or park to name it by.