About Too Damn Dark

Dark sky places

DarkSky International certifies International Dark Sky Places. Its own list blocked automated reading when we checked on October 12, 2026, and we didn't try to get around that. So we built our list the slow way: each of the 130 places is here because the agency or group that manages it says, on its own website, that it's certified. Each card quotes that sentence and links the page. On October 12, 2026 we re-fetched every one of those pages and kept only quotes still found word for word.

That means the list can miss places. Some agencies don't mention their certification, or say it somewhere we couldn't confirm. We looked at 54 more candidates and left them out because we couldn't confirm them on an official page. Agency pages confirm a DarkSky certification for Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument but never name the designation type (the BLM page calls it a "Dark Sky Province"), so we left it out rather than guess. East Canyon State Park: the Utah State Parks pages we could read call it certified but don't name the designation type in a statement or heading, so we left it out under the same rule as Parashant. For the complete official list, use DarkSky International's finder.

• Type. Our rule: a place's category (Dark Sky Park, Dark Sky Community, Dark Sky Reserve, Dark Sky Sanctuary, Urban Night Sky Place) counts only when an official page names it in an explicit statement, a page heading, or the page's own description. A marketing description, or an organization's name inside a sentence, doesn't count. When the category evidence isn't in the main quote, the card shows it separately and says where it came from. Places that fail the rule are left out.
• Certification year appears only where an agency page states it (92 places).
• Map pins (117 places): 46 from the National Park Service's published park locations, 25 from coordinates or directions points on the agency's page, 16 from US Census Geocoder matches on the agency's street address, 10 from the center of the agency address's ZIP code, and 20 from the US Census center of a certified town. 8 large areas get no pin, and 5 more have no usable address. Every card says what its pin marks.
• Distances are straight-line miles from your ZIP code's center (US Census 2024 ZIP code areas), not driving distance. ZIP codes must match the Census list exactly; we don't guess. Places are ranked only among those we list with a distance reference point.
• Sources. 2 places are confirmed on an official page other than the managing body's (for example a National Park Service page about a neighboring reservation); their cards say so.
• Map links open the distance reference point itself, not directions. Use the agency's own directions to get there.

Meteor showers

• Dates and rates for late 2026 come from the American Meteor Society's 2026/2027 calendar. We use it only for showers whose next peak its data marks as 2026. Rates are its "Average ZHR". We also quote its major showers page.
• Dates and rates for 2027 come from the International Meteor Organization's 2027 Meteor Shower Calendar. IMO says its maximum dates are accurate only for 2027. IMO's 2026 calendar wasn't available while imo.net is being rebuilt.
• Moon phase and percent lit are the US Naval Observatory's figures for both calendar dates of each peak night.
• Rates. We print each source's published ZHR. ZHR is a standardized rate: what one observer would count in an hour under a perfectly dark sky with the radiant straight overhead. It isn't a forecast, and what you count is usually lower.
• Moon reference. USNO's one-day figure for each calendar date, requested for 39.83° N, 98.58° W (near the center of the contiguous US) at UTC−6. USNO doesn't say what time of day the figure applies to. We print the figure for both dates of each night and link both requests.

What we calculate ourselves

• Radiant highest. The local mean solar time when each shower's radiant crosses the meridian: (RA − GMST at 0h UT on the evening date) ÷ 1.00273790935, using the US Naval Observatory's GMST formula (GMST = 6.697374558 + 0.06570982441908 D₀ hours, D₀ = days from J2000.0), rounded to the half hour. It isn't clock time: time zones and daylight saving can shift it by an hour or more. Inputs are in the table below.
• Radiant height and rise time (shower guides). Highest altitude = 90° − |φ − δ| for latitude φ and radiant declination δ. Rising hour angle H₀ from cos H₀ = −tan φ tan δ; if δ ≥ 90° − φ the radiant never sets ("always above the horizon"), and if δ ≤ φ − 90° it never rises. Rise time = transit time − H₀ (degrees ÷ 15, then ÷ 1.00273790935 to convert sidereal to solar hours), shown in local mean solar time rounded to the half hour. The radiant is treated as fixed at the calendar position for the evening date shown; terrain, twilight and refraction aren't modeled. Altitudes are rounded to whole degrees, and the example cities are only near each latitude.
• Eastern Time. IMO's Universal Time peaks converted to US Eastern Time, keeping IMO's full window where it gives one.
• Suggested observing nights for 2027: the US night nearest IMO's maximum, chosen for the Eastern US.
• Moon descriptions ("a thin Moon", "a partly lit Moon", "a bright Moon") come from USNO's percent lit alone. They don't account for when the Moon rises or sets.
• Distances from ZIP codes, as above.

We don't predict weather or say anything about tonight's clouds. Check a forecast.

Corrections

If you manage one of these places, or spot a mistake or a missing certified place, contact us through North Coast AI with a link to the official page that shows the right information. We fix verified errors and never charge for a listing.

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When you use the ZIP finder, your ZIP code goes into the page address (for example ?zip=44101). That means it can appear in your browser history, in our web server and network logs, and in the page addresses Google Analytics records. The distance math runs in your browser.

Who makes this

Too Damn Dark is published by North Coast AI LLC in Ohio. It was built with AI assistance and reviewed by Bill Burkey. Data checked October 12, 2026.