YozoraAtlas

How dark is the sky in Scotland?

Sky darkness for 48 towns and parks in Scotland, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 37 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is North Uist (21.94, Bortle 2), the brightest Glasgow (17.51, 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 Scotland with every place marked

Darkest skies in Scotland

  1. North UistBortle 221.94
  2. South UistBortle 221.92
  3. AssyntBortle 221.91
  4. TireeBortle 221.90
  5. CollBortle 321.89

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 Scotland

  1. GlasgowBortle 817.51
  2. AberdeenBortle 817.96
  3. EdinburghBortle 818.10
  4. HamiltonBortle 718.48
  5. East KilbrideBortle 718.50

All 48 places in Scotland

Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.
Aberdeen8Applecross3Ardnamurchan3Argyll Forest Park4Assynt2Coll3Cumbernauld7Dundee7Dunfermline6Dunnet Head3Durness3East Kilbride7Edinburgh8Eskdalemuir4Galloway Forest Park4Glasgow8Glen Affric3Glen Clova4Glen Coe3Glen Etive3Glen Lyon4Glenshee4Hamilton7Harris3Jura3Kintyre4Kirkcaldy6Knoydart3Lewis3Livingston7Loch Lomond and the Trossachs4Moffat4North Uist2Orkney4Paisley7Rannoch Moor4Shetland3South Uist2Tay Forest Park4Tiree2Torridon3Tweedsmuir4Wester Ross3the Cairngorms3the Flow Country3the Isle of Arran4the Isle of Mull3the Isle of Skye3