YozoraAtlas

How dark is the sky in Ticino?

Sky darkness for 2 towns and parks in Ticino, 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 Bellinzona (20.01, Bortle 5), the brightest Lugano (19.37, Bortle 6). Milky Way season in Ticino runs April to July: on moonless nights the bright core stands clear of the horizon, climbing to about 15° 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 Ticino with every place marked

Darkest skies in Ticino

  1. BellinzonaBortle 520.01
  2. LuganoBortle 619.37

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

All 2 places in Ticino

Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.
Bellinzona5Lugano6