Pennsylvania, USA · 41.66°N 77.83°W · 700 m
Stargazing in Cherry Springs
The East Coast's flagship dark site — sky quality excellent, cloud statistics not.
- Sky quality
- Bortle 2 — excellent dark sky
- Clear nights a year
- ≈ 49
- Best month overall
- September
- Milky Way core
- March–September
The Milky Way shows structure and casts a faint shadow; the zodiacal light and airglow are visible to the naked eye.
Key facts
- Sky quality
- Bortle 2 — excellent dark skyBortle class 2
- Average clear nights
- 49 per yearNights averaging under 30% cloud, 10-year ERA5 record
- Best Milky Way season
- March–SeptemberPeak month: June, core reaching 19°
- Darkness quality
- Workable11.4 h of astronomical darkness at its darkest, in December
- Typical cloud cover in July
- 56%21% of nights come in under 30% cloud
- Best month for astrophotography
- SeptemberAbout 4.8 dark, moon-free, statistically clear nights
- Coordinates
- 41.6634, -77.8261700 m elevation · America/New_York
Questions answered on this page
- Is tonight good for stargazing in Cherry Springs?
- Is the Milky Way visible from Cherry Springs?
- How many clear nights does Cherry Springs get each year?
- What is the best month for astrophotography in Cherry Springs?
- How many hours of true darkness does Cherry Springs get each month?
- How dark is the sky in Cherry Springs on the Bortle scale?
- When is the Milky Way core above the horizon from Cherry Springs?
- Should I drive somewhere darker than Cherry Springs?
Cherry Springs State Park is a Bortle 2 island in the Pennsylvania Wilds with a purpose-built astronomy field, and it draws observers from the entire northeastern United States. On a clear, moonless night the sky here is as good as anywhere east of the Mississippi.
The honest caveat is the weather: the Allegheny Plateau is humid and often cloudy, and a large fraction of trips are clouded out. Check the forecast obsessively, keep plans flexible, and treat autumn's dry cold fronts as the highest-percentage bet.
Evergreen intelligence
The four questions people ask about Cherry Springs
Computed from 10 years of ERA5 reanalysis at these coordinates and a full year of Sun and Moon geometry — not copied from anywhere.
- How many clear nights does Cherry Springs have?
- About 49 nights a year average less than 30% cloud cover, based on 10 years of ERA5 daily reanalysis at 41.66, -77.83. The clearest month is September at 25% of nights; when you also require darkness and no Moon, roughly 31 nights a year are genuinely usable for faint targets.
- What is the best month for the Milky Way in Cherry Springs?
- June. The galactic centre clears 10° from March to September, and in June it reaches 19° while the sky is astronomically dark, with about 4.5 hours of usable core time a night and 17% of nights averaging under 30% cloud.
- When is it darkest in Cherry Springs?
- December gives the most true darkness — an average of 11.4 hours a night with the Sun more than 18° below the horizon.
- When should I plan an astrophotography trip to Cherry Springs?
- September offers the most nights that are simultaneously dark, moon-free and statistically clear — about 4.8 of them. Book around the new Moon in that month and keep two spare nights; a single fixed date at any location is a coin toss.
Darkness calendar
Cherry Springs month by month
Astronomical darkness and Moon geometry are computed for these coordinates. Cloud figures are ten-year ERA5 daily means. Rating combines darkness, moon-free nights and clear-sky odds.
| Month | Astro darkness | Moon-free dark nights | Avg cloud | Clear nights | Milky Way core | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 11.1 h | 22 | 80% | 5% | — | Off-season |
| Feb | 10.2 h | 21 | 75% | 8% | — | Poor |
| Mar | 8.8 h | 20 | 69% | 12% | 15° max | Poor |
| Apr | 7.2 h | 18 | 71% | 10% | 19° max | Poor |
| May | 5.4 h | 17 | 70% | 10% | 19° max | Poor |
| Jun | 4.5 h | 18 | 61% | 17% | 19° max | Poor |
| Jul | 4.9 h | 17 | 56% | 21% | 19° max | Poor |
| Aug | 6.6 h | 18 | 58% | 16% | 19° max | Poor |
| Sep | 8.3 h | 19 | 55% | 25% | 15° max | Workable |
| Oct | 9.7 h | 21 | 61% | 21% | — | Workable |
| Nov | 10.9 h | 23 | 69% | 13% | — | Poor |
| Dec | 11.4 h | 25 | 83% | 3% | — | Off-season |
"Moon-free dark nights" counts nights with at least two hours of astronomical darkness during which the Moon stays below the horizon. "Clear nights" is the share of days in the ERA5 record averaging under 30% cloud cover.
Practical
What Cherry Springs is actually good for
- Deep-sky visual observing
- Star parties
- Autumn transparency
For a decision on a specific night rather than a season, the SnapCosmos Night Engine scores tonight and the next six nights from these coordinates — . The method, weighting and known limits are documented on the Night Engine page, and its measured accuracy is published here.
FAQ
Common questions about the sky in Cherry Springs
- Can you see the Milky Way in Cherry Springs?
- Yes. Cherry Springs sits at Bortle 2 — excellent dark sky, where the Milky Way is an obvious, structured band whenever the galactic centre is above the horizon and the Moon is down.
- When is the best time of year to stargaze in Cherry Springs?
- It depends on what you want to see, and the month-by-month table on this page ranks every month by hours of astronomical darkness, moon-free nights and ten years of cloud statistics for these exact coordinates.
- How dark does it get in Cherry Springs?
- Cherry Springs is at latitude 41.7°N, and this page computes the hours of true astronomical darkness — Sun more than 18° below the horizon — for every month of the year at that latitude.
- Is tonight a good night in Cherry Springs?
- The SnapCosmos Night Engine scores tonight for these coordinates against the coming week using live cloud forecasts, Moon geometry and darkness, and returns a single go, wait or skip recommendation.
Where these numbers come from
- Ten-year cloud-cover climatology and historical night rankingERA5 reanalysisECMWF / Copernicus Climate Change Service
- Hourly cloud cover, precipitation, humidity and visibility forecastsOpen-Meteo forecast and archive APIOpen-Meteo
- Sun, Moon and planet positions, rise and set times, twilight phasesAstronomy Engine (VSOP87 / ELP2000 series)Don Cross, after the IMCCE and JPL analytical theories
- Bortle class and sky-brightness context for each locationWorld Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness (Falchi et al., 2016)Science Advances / Light Pollution Map
- Definitions of civil, nautical and astronomical twilight, and lunar phase conventionsAstronomical Applications DepartmentUnited States Naval Observatory
Figures on this page last recomputed .
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