How dark is the sky in Oklahoma?
Sky darkness for 16 towns and parks in Oklahoma, 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 Alabaster Caverns State Park (21.66, Bortle 4), the brightest Oklahoma City (17.29, 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 Oklahoma
- Alabaster Caverns State ParkBortle 421.66
- Winding Stair Mountain National Recreation AreaBortle 421.58
- Little Sahara State ParkBortle 421.41
- Robbers Cave State ParkBortle 421.37
- Boiling Springs State ParkBortle 421.03
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 Oklahoma
All 16 places in Oklahoma
Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.
Alabaster Caverns State Park4Boiling Springs State Park4Broken Arrow8Chickasaw National Recreation Area5Edmond8Enid7Lawton8Little Sahara State Park4Midwest City8Moore8Norman8Oklahoma City8Ozark-St. Francis National Forest5Robbers Cave State Park4Tulsa8Winding Stair Mountain National Recreation Area4