How dark is the sky in Central Macedonia?
Sky darkness for 12 towns and parks in Central Macedonia, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 4 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Mount Olympus National Park (21.34, Bortle 4), the brightest Thessaloniki (18.17, Bortle 8). Milky Way season in Central Macedonia runs March to August: on moonless nights the bright core stands clear of the horizon, climbing to about 21° 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 Central Macedonia
- Mount Olympus National ParkBortle 421.34
- Lake Kerkini National ParkBortle 421.24
- Lakes Koronia-Volvi National ParkBortle 420.90
- Axios-Loudias-Aliakmonas Delta National ParkBortle 420.78
Among the places on this site. Plenty of land between them is just as dark, with no town or park to name it by.