How dark is the sky in New Zealand?
Sky darkness for 65 towns and parks in New Zealand, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 23 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Fiordland National Park (21.94, Bortle 2), the brightest Auckland (18.11, Bortle 8).
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
Darkest skies in New Zealand
- Fiordland National ParkSouthland · Bortle 221.94
- Nelson Lakes National ParkTasman · Bortle 221.93
- Paparoa National ParkWest Coast · Bortle 221.93
- Westland Tai Poutini National ParkWest Coast · Bortle 221.93
- Tāhuna GlenorchyOtago · Bortle 221.92
Among the places on this site. Plenty of land between them is just as dark, with no town or park to name it by.
Darkest place in each region of New Zealand
| Region | Places | Dark places Bortle 1 to 4 | Darkest place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auckland | 3 places | 1 dark | Great Barrier Island21.86 · Bortle 3 |
| Bay of Plenty | 4 places | 0 dark | Te Puke20.20 · Bortle 5 |
| Canterbury | 11 places | 5 dark | Aoraki Mackenzie21.91 · Bortle 2 |
| Gisborne | 1 place | 0 dark | Gisborne19.68 · Bortle 5 |
| Hawke's Bay | 2 places | 0 dark | Hastings19.13 · Bortle 6 |
| Manawatū-Whanganui | 5 places | 2 dark | Tongariro National Park21.89 · Bortle 3 |
| Marlborough | 1 place | 0 dark | Blenheim19.56 · Bortle 5 |
| Nelson | 1 place | 0 dark | Nelson19.66 · Bortle 5 |
| Northland | 1 place | 0 dark | Whangarei19.38 · Bortle 6 |
| Otago | 9 places | 4 dark | Tāhuna Glenorchy21.92 · Bortle 2 |
| Southland | 4 places | 2 dark | Fiordland National Park21.94 · Bortle 2 |
| Taranaki | 3 places | 1 dark | Egmont National Park21.77 · Bortle 3 |
| Tasman | 5 places | 4 dark | Nelson Lakes National Park21.93 · Bortle 2 |
| Waikato | 5 places | 0 dark | Cambridge20.16 · Bortle 5 |
| Wellington | 8 places | 2 dark | the Wairarapa Dark Sky Reserve21.26 · Bortle 4 |
| West Coast | 2 places | 2 dark | Paparoa National Park21.93 · Bortle 2 |