YozoraAtlas

How dark is the sky in Virginia?

Sky darkness for 38 towns and parks in Virginia, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 19 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is George Washington National Forest (21.31, Bortle 4), the brightest Norfolk (17.45, Bortle 8). Milky Way season in Virginia runs March to September: on moonless nights the bright core stands clear of the horizon, climbing to about 24° 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

All 38 places in Virginia

Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.
Alexandria8Arlington8Bear Creek Lake State Park4Booker T. Washington National Monument5Breaks Interstate Park4Centreville8Chesapeake8Dale City8Douthat State Park4East Hampton7Fairy Stone State Park4False Cape State Park4George Washington Birthplace National Monument4George Washington National Forest4George Washington and Jefferson National Forests5Grayson Highlands State Park4Hampton8Harrisonburg7Hungry Mother State Park4James River State Park4Leesburg8Longdale Recreation Area4Lynchburg7Mount Rogers National Recreation Area4Natural Tunnel State Park4Newport News8Norfolk8Occoneechee State Park4Reston8Richmond8Roanoke8Shenandoah National Park4Smith Mountain Lake State Park4Staunton River State Park4Suffolk7Twin Lakes State Park4Virginia Beach7Westmoreland State Park4