Stargazing guides for the United States

Local guides

Our first local guide covers Pittsburgh, with access information checked against operator sources. Dedicated guides for other areas are still to come. In the meantime, use the map and planning basics for your part of the country.

Find a place you can use after dark

A darker patch on a map is a starting point. A useful observing spot also needs the right sky conditions, a clear view and permission to be there at night.

Start close to home. Consider an astronomy club’s public star party, a park with explicitly permitted evening access, or a place where you have permission to observe. A public park or trailhead can still close at dusk. Check the operator’s current rules for your chosen entrance, parking area and night.

Start with what you want to see

• Stars and constellations: look for a clear sky and a place away from nearby lamps. Lower-light areas on the map are worth investigating.
• The Milky Way: darkness matters more for this faint target. Check the selected night’s darkness and Moon conditions, and the target’s position. A dark location alone is not enough.
• The Moon or Jupiter: you may not need a long drive away from town. Check that your target is above the horizon and the sky is clear. Buildings, trees and unsteady air can still limit the view. The map cannot measure these.

Use the map to plan your search

1. Choose a starting point. Open search and enter a city or place, use “My location”, or select a map point. Location permission is optional.
2. Choose your night and goal. Tell the planner what you want to see and how far you want to search. Open the extra filters only if you need them.
3. Compare the candidates. Read why each place was selected, its forecast and any missing information. Use driving estimates to compare trips. They are estimates, not live traffic or a promise of arrival time.
4. Check the best time. Open Conditions for the selected location. Review darkness, Moon conditions and clouds for the hour you plan to observe. Check the displayed time zone. Automatic time-zone lookup is approximate and can be changed.
5. Confirm access before leaving. Check the land manager’s current opening hours, entrance, parking and nighttime rules. Open directions after checking the destination and save the place if you want to return.

Search results are a bounded set of candidate places, not every possible destination or a list of verified nighttime viewing sites. “Access unknown” means you still need to check.

What do the light pollution map colors mean?

Open Map key on the map to see its color scale. Blue and green indicate less light detected from the ground. Yellow, orange and pink indicate more. The overlay uses annual 2025 satellite observations from the Earth Observation Group, rather than a live picture of tonight.

The technical term satellite radiance means light traveling upward toward a satellite. It is not a measurement of the sky’s brightness as seen by someone standing on the ground. This map does not convert it into a Bortle class or an SQM reading.

Some background light has been removed from the source data, leaving valid zero values. Those zeros do not prove perfect darkness. Areas with no data, missing coverage or a layer that has not loaded should not be treated as dark either. Select a point to read its data status and source information.

Check conditions, not just darkness

A low-light location can still be cloudy. Moonlight, the target’s position and the time of night also affect what you can see. The app combines calculated Sun and Moon positions with weather forecasts from MET Norway where available.

Read the forecast timestamp and unknown-data labels. An unavailable or expired forecast is not a clear-sky forecast. Conditions can change, so check again before you set out.

Do I need an account?

No. The map, place search and observing planner work without signing in, subject to shared service limits. You can save places in this browser. An optional email-code account lets you save places across devices.

During a search cooldown or provider outage, you can still choose a map point and inspect available data. See support and responsible use for service limits and trip-planning cautions.