How dark is the sky in New York?
Sky darkness for 40 towns and parks in New York, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 18 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Adirondack Park (21.65, Bortle 4), the brightest New York City (17.00, 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 New York
- Adirondack ParkBortle 421.65
- Whetstone Gulf State ParkBortle 421.30
- Oquaga Creek State ParkBortle 421.26
- Pixley Falls State ParkBortle 421.12
- Camp Hero State ParkBortle 420.99
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 New York
All 40 places in New York
Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.
Adirondack Park4Albany8Allegany State Park4Amherst8Brentwood8Brooklyn8Buffalo8Camp Hero State Park4Cheektowaga8Chimney Bluffs State Park4Chittenango Falls State Park4Clay6Fair Haven Beach State Park4Fire Island National Seashore5Greenburgh7Hamlin Beach State Park4Hempstead8Hither Hills State Park4Lake Taghkanic State Park4Letchworth State Park4Levittown8Manhattan8New Rochelle8New York City8Oquaga Creek State Park4Pixley Falls State Park4Point Au Roche State Park4Queens8Robert H. Treman State Park4Rochester8Schenectady8Staten Island8Stony Brook State Park4Syracuse8Taconic State Park4Taughannock Falls State Park4The Bronx8Utica7Whetstone Gulf State Park4Yonkers8