How dark is the sky in Coimbra?
Sky darkness for 2 towns and parks in Coimbra, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). None of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Figueira da Foz (19.91, Bortle 5), the brightest Coimbra (18.87, Bortle 7). Milky Way season in Coimbra runs March to September: 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 Coimbra
Among the places on this site. Plenty of land between them is just as dark, with no town or park to name it by.
