YozoraAtlas

How dark is the sky in Occitanie?

Sky darkness for 12 towns and parks in Occitanie, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 3 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Cévennes National Park (21.78, Bortle 3), the brightest Perpignan (18.79, Bortle 7). Milky Way season in Occitanie runs April to August: 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 Occitanie with every place marked

Darkest skies in Occitanie

  1. Cévennes National ParkBortle 321.78
  2. Pyrénées National ParkBortle 321.75
  3. Pic du Midi de BigorreBortle 321.74

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 Occitanie

  1. PerpignanBortle 718.79
  2. ToulouseBortle 718.79
  3. MontpellierBortle 718.90
  4. NarbonneBortle 619.21
  5. NîmesBortle 619.31

All 12 places in Occitanie

Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.
Albi5Béziers5Cévennes National Park3Montauban5Montpellier7Narbonne6Nîmes6Perpignan7Pic du Midi de Bigorre3Pyrénées National Park3Tarbes5Toulouse7