How dark is the sky in Arkansas?
Sky darkness for 13 towns and parks in Arkansas, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 5 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Arkansas Post (21.46, Bortle 4), the brightest Little Rock (17.80, 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 Arkansas
- Arkansas PostBortle 421.46
- Buffalo National RiverBortle 421.45
- Ouachita National ForestBortle 421.44
- Crater of Diamonds State ParkBortle 421.34
- Petit Jean State ParkBortle 421.00
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 Arkansas
All 13 places in Arkansas
Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.