YozoraAtlas

How dark is the sky in England?

Sky darkness for 217 towns and parks in England, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 35 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is the Isles of Scilly (21.87, Bortle 3), the brightest London (16.97, 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

NASA satellite night-lights map of England with every place marked

Darkest skies in England

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 England

All 217 places in England

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

Alston Moor4 Arnside and Silverdale4 Ashford6 Aylesbury6 Barking8 Barnsley7 Barrow in Furness7 Basildon7 Basingstoke6 Bath6 Bedford7 Birkenhead8 Birmingham8 Blackburn7 Blackpool7 Bodmin Moor4 Bognor Regis5 Bolton8 Bournemouth7 Bracknell7 Bradford8 Braintree6 Brentwood7 Brighton7 Bristol8 Burnley7 Burton upon Trent7 Bury7 Cambridge7 Cannock7 Cannock Chase5 Canterbury6 Carlisle6 Chelmsford6 Cheltenham6 Chester7 Chesterfield7 Chichester Harbour5 City of Westminster8 Clacton-on-Sea5 Colchester6 Corby7 Cornwall4 Coventry8 Cranborne Chase4 Crawley7 Crewe7 Croydon8 Dagenham8 Darlington7 Dartford8 Dartmoor4 Derby8 Dewsbury7 Doncaster8 Dorset4 Dudley8 East Devon4 Eastbourne5 Ellesmere Port7 Enfield Town8 Esher7 Exeter6 Exmoor National Park4 Farnborough7 Folkestone5 Fylde5 Gillingham7 Gloucester7 Grays8 Great Yarmouth6 Grimsby7 Guildford6 Halifax7 Harlow7 Harrogate6 Harrow8 Hartlepool7 Hastings5 Hemel Hempstead7 Hereford6 High Wycombe6 Horsham6 Huddersfield7 Huyton8 Ilford8 Ipswich7 Islington8 Keighley6 Kettering6 Kidderminster6 Kielder Water & Forest Park4 Kingston upon Hull8 Leeds8 Leicester8 Lincoln7 Littlehampton5 Liverpool8 London8 Loughborough6 Lowestoft6 Luton7 Macclesfield6 Maidenhead7 Maidstone7 Manchester8 Mansfield7 Middlesbrough8 Milton Keynes7 Morecambe5 Newcastle under Lyme7 Newcastle upon Tyne8 Nidderdale4 Northampton7 Northumberland National Park4 Norwich7 Nottingham8 Nuneaton7 Oldham8 Oxford7 Paignton5 Peterborough7 Plymouth7 Poole6 Portsmouth7 Preston7 Reading7 Redditch6 Redhill6 Rochdale8 Rotherham8 Royal Leamington Spa6 Royal Tunbridge Wells5 Rugby7 Saint Peters5 Salford8 Scarborough6 Scunthorpe6 Sheffield8 Shrewsbury6 Sittingbourne6 Slough8 Solihull7 South Devon4 South Downs National Park5 Southampton8 Southend-on-Sea7 Southport6 St Albans7 St Helens7 Stafford7 Staines7 Stevenage7 Stockport8 Stoke-on-Trent8 Stroud5 Sunderland8 Sutton8 Sutton Coldfield7 Swindon7 Tamworth7 Taunton6 Telford7 Tottenham8 Tynemouth7 Wakefield8 Walsall8 Walthamstow8 Warrington8 Washington7 Waterlooville6 Watford8 Wellingborough6 Welwyn Garden City6 West Bromwich8 Weston-super-Mare5 Weymouth5 Widnes8 Wigan7 Woking7 Wolverhampton8 Worcester6 Worthing6 Yeovil6 York7 the Blackdown Hills4 the Broads4 the Cheviot Hills4 the Chilterns5 the Cotswolds4 the Forest of Bowland4 the Forest of Dean4 the High Weald5 the Howardian Hills4 the Isle of Wight6 the Isles of Scilly3 the Kent Downs6 the Lake District4 the Lincolnshire Wolds4 the Malvern Hills5 the Mendip Hills5 the New Forest4 the Norfolk Coast4 the North Devon coast4 the North Pennines4 the North Wessex Downs4 the North York Moors4 the Northumberland Coast4 the Peak District5 the Quantock Hills4 the Shropshire Hills4 the Solway Coast4 the Suffolk Coast and Heaths5 the Surrey Hills6 the Tamar Valley4 the Wye Valley5 the Yorkshire Dales4