YozoraAtlas

How dark is the sky in Florida?

Sky darkness for 87 towns and parks in Florida, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 26 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Dry Tortugas National Park (21.92, Bortle 2), the brightest Miami (17.03, Bortle 8). Milky Way season in Florida runs March to September: on moonless nights the bright core stands clear of the horizon, climbing to about 36° 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 Florida with every place marked

Darkest skies in Florida

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 Florida

All 87 places in Florida

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

Alafaya8 Bahia Honda State Park4 Big Cypress National Preserve4 Biscayne National Park5 Blackwater River State Park4 Boca Raton8 Bonita Springs7 Boynton Beach8 Bradenton8 Brandon8 Canaveral National Seashore4 Cape Coral7 Cayo Costa State Park4 Choctawhatchee National Forest5 Clearwater8 Collier-Seminole State Park4 Coral Springs8 Curry Hammock State Park4 Davie8 Daytona Beach8 Deltona7 Doral8 Dry Tortugas National Park2 Econfina River State Park4 Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area4 Everglades National Park4 Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park4 Fanning Springs State Park4 Fort Lauderdale8 Fort Matanzas National Monument4 Fort Myers8 Gainesville8 Gulf Islands National Seashore5 Hialeah8 Hollywood8 Homestead8 Ichetucknee Springs State Park4 Indian Key State Historic Site4 Jacksonville8 Jupiter7 Kendale Lakes8 Kendall8 Kissimmee8 Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park4 Lakeland8 Lehigh Acres6 Long Key State Park4 Miami8 Miami Gardens8 Miramar8 North Miami8 North Port7 Ocala8 Orlando8 Osceola National Forest4 Palm Bay7 Palm Beach Gardens7 Palm Coast5 Palm Harbor7 Pembroke Pines8 Pensacola8 Pinellas Park8 Poinciana7 Pompano Beach8 Ponce de Leon Springs State Park4 Port Charlotte7 Port Orange7 Port Saint Lucie7 Riverview8 San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park4 Sanford8 Sarasota8 Spring Hill7 St. George Island State Park4 St. Joseph Peninsula State Park4 St. Petersburg8 Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park4 Tallahassee8 Tampa8 The Villages7 Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve5 Torreya State Park4 Town 'n' Country8 Wellington7 Wes Skiles Peacock Springs State Park4 West Palm Beach8 Weston8