How dark is the sky in West Virginia?
Sky darkness for 9 towns and parks in West Virginia, worked out from NASA satellite images of light at night (2025). 9 of them have skies of Bortle 4 or darker, where the Milky Way shows overhead. The darkest is Monongahela National Forest (21.50, Bortle 4), the brightest Gauley River National Recreation Area (20.75, Bortle 4).
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 West Virginia
- Monongahela National ForestBortle 421.50
- Beartown State ParkBortle 421.43
- Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation AreaBortle 421.43
- Droop Mountain Battlefield State ParkBortle 421.39
- Blackwater FallsBortle 421.10
Among the places on this site. Plenty of land between them is just as dark, with no town or park to name it by.
All 9 places in West Virginia
Amber names are parks and certified dark-sky places. The figure is the Bortle class: 1 darkest, 9 city center.