Springfield, MA — light pollution & stargazing across the metro
The Springfield, MA light dome covers 41 towns and about 1,452,901 people rated together, reading roughly Bortle 9 — a inner-city sky (very poor — city glow) — at Springfield itself, measured from VIIRS 2024 satellite night-lights. The darkest edge of this same dome is Winchester Center, about 31 mi out, at roughly Bortle 3. Tonight's Moon phase, cloud cover, and aurora odds load live below, computed in your browser.
Stargazing at the Springfield core tonight
- Estimated Bortle class (core)
- 9 of 9
- VIIRS radiance (core)
- 118 nW/cm²/sr
- Naked-eye limiting mag. (core)
- under 4.1
- Darkest edge of this dome
- Winchester Center · B3 · 31 mi
Inner-city sky.
What you can see from the Springfield core
Only the Moon, the bright planets, and a scattering of the very brightest stars pierce the glow. For real stargazing you'll want to drive to a darker site.
At an estimated Bortle 9, the faintest stars visible from Springfield itself on a clear, moonless night run to about magnitude 4.0 or brighter, and the Milky Way is not visible. Winchester Center is a regional drive away (31 mi) and improves to roughly Bortle 3.
Of the 41 towns rated in this dome, most read Bortle 6 (18 towns) — spread across 7 darkness classes overall. Beyond Springfield itself, Hartford, New Britain, West Hartford round out the largest towns sharing this same light dome.
The sky from 42.1°N
Declination above +47.9° never sets here, and below −47.9° never rises — no matter how clear the night or how long you wait.
- Never sets: Polaris, the Big Dipper
- Never rises: Canopus, Alpha Centauri, the Southern Cross
- Skims the southern horizon: the Milky Way core (peaks 19° up), Fomalhaut (peaks 18° up)
- Milky Way core: culminates 18.9° above the southern horizon — it sits low in the south, so a clear, unobstructed southern horizon matters more here than darkness overhead.
- Longest night: 15 h 05 m at the December solstice, 8 h 55 m in June.
- Midsummer: the Sun reaches only 24.5° below the horizon at solar midnight in June — past the 18° astronomical-night mark.
Geometric, from 42.102°N, 72.590°W. How these are computed.
Every town in this light dome, darkest first
All 41 towns inside Springfield's ~35-mile dome, each with its own measured reading.
| Town | State | Bortle | Sky | Radiance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winchester Center | CT | 3 | Rural sky | 0.3 |
| Mansfield City | CT | 4 | Rural / suburban transition | 0.8 |
| Amherst | MA | 5 | Suburban sky | 3.9 |
| South Windsor | CT | 5 | Suburban sky | 4.0 |
| Tolland | CT | 5 | Suburban sky | 4.6 |
| Ellington | CT | 5 | Suburban sky | 4.8 |
| Farmington | CT | 5 | Suburban sky | 4.9 |
| West Torrington | CT | 5 | Suburban sky | 5.0 |
| Longmeadow | MA | 5 | Suburban sky | 5.8 |
| Agawam | MA | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 8.0 |
| Northampton | MA | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 8.1 |
| Enfield | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 9.0 |
| South Hadley | MA | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 9.1 |
| Avon | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 10 |
| Easthampton | MA | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 11 |
| Amherst Center | MA | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 12 |
| Windsor | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 13 |
| Windsor Locks | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 13 |
| Wethersfield | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 14 |
| Glastonbury | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 14 |
| Greenfield | MA | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 15 |
| East Longmeadow | MA | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 15 |
| North Chicopee | MA | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 15 |
| Bristol | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 15 |
| Bloomfield | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 15 |
| Willimantic | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 17 |
| Newington | CT | 6 | Bright suburban sky | 17 |
| Ludlow | MA | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 21 |
| Plainville | CT | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 22 |
| Torrington | CT | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 22 |
| Chicopee | MA | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 25 |
| East Hartford | CT | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 26 |
| Manchester | CT | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 30 |
| Westfield | MA | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 30 |
| New Britain | CT | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 34 |
| Holyoke | MA | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 34 |
| West Springfield | MA | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 35 |
| West Hartford | CT | 7 | Suburban / urban transition | 37 |
| Storrs | CT | 8 | City sky | 45 |
| Hartford | CT | 8 | City sky | 83 |
| Springfield | MA | 9 | Inner-city sky | 118 |
Certified dark-sky destinations near Springfield
None of the 92 certified International Dark Sky Places sit within about 250 miles of Springfield. The darkest option inside this same metro is Winchester Center, about 31 mi out.
Other light domes near Springfield
Worcester, MA (42 mi, core Bortle 9) , Providence, RI (63 mi, core Bortle 9) , and Bridgeport, CT (71 mi, core Bortle 8) are the closest other metro-scale domes tracked here — each with its own core reading and its own darkest edge.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you see the Milky Way from Springfield?
- Not from Springfield itself — at about Bortle 9 the dome is too bright. The darkest edge of the same metro is Winchester Center, about 31 mi out at roughly Bortle 3.
- How dark is the sky across the Springfield metro?
- It varies by how close you are to the core. Springfield itself reads about Bortle 9; the 41 towns in this light dome range down to Winchester Center at roughly Bortle 3, about 31 mi from the core. The table above sorts every town in the metro by measured darkness.
- Where's the nearest certified dark-sky destination to Springfield?
- None of the 92 certified International Dark Sky Places sit within about 250 miles of Springfield — the nearest genuinely darker option is Winchester Center within the metro itself.
A satellite proxy, not a survey-grade reading. Sources and limits.
More in Massachusetts
All Massachusetts towns · Bortle scale · Tonight's Moon · Dark-sky map