YozoraAtlas

How dark is the sky in Nouvelle-Aquitaine?

Sky darkness for 9 towns and parks in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 2 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Millevaches (21.87, Bortle 3), the brightest Bordeaux (18.91, Bortle 7). Milky Way season in Nouvelle-Aquitaine runs April to July: on moonless nights the bright core stands clear of the horizon, climbing to about 18° at its highest.

19 Bortle class, 1 pristine to 9 city center park or dark-sky place city

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

NASA satellite night-lights map of Nouvelle-Aquitaine with every place marked

Darkest skies in Nouvelle-Aquitaine

  1. MillevachesBortle 321.87
  2. the Landes de GascogneBortle 421.18

Among the places on this site. Plenty of land between them is just as dark, with no town or park to name it by.

Brightest city skies in Nouvelle-Aquitaine

  1. BordeauxBortle 718.91
  2. PauBortle 519.56
  3. LimogesBortle 519.87
  4. La RochelleBortle 519.94
  5. PoitiersBortle 520.20

All 9 places in Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.
Bordeaux7Brive-la-Gaillarde5La Rochelle5Limoges5Millevaches3Niort5Pau5Poitiers5the Landes de Gascogne4