Saudi Arabia desert
Ad-Dahna Desert
Bortle 4: rural–suburban transition. Tonight's real sky above it, live.
Calculating the sky…
Drag to turn round. Stars from the HYG catalogue; glow and horizon from the light model and the terrain.
The usual sky here
Bortle 4.
The Milky Way is visible but washed out near the horizon; light domes from towns in several directions.
Our own rating, from verifiable data only: sky brightness (60 points), clear nights (25), open horizon (10) and altitude (5).
- 1Excellent dark sky≥ 21.89 · stars to mag 7.6
- 2Truly dark sky21.69–21.89 · stars to mag 7.1
- 3Rural sky21.25–21.69 · stars to mag 6.6
- 4Rural–suburban transition20.49–21.25 · stars to mag 6.1 You are here
- 5Suburban sky19.50–20.49 · stars to mag 5.6
- 6Bright suburban sky18.94–19.50 · stars to mag 5.1
- 7Suburban–urban transition18.38–18.94 · stars to mag 4.6
- 8City sky17.80–18.38 · stars to mag 4.1
- 9Inner-city sky< 17.80 · stars to mag 3.6
- 20.89Sky brightnessmag/arcsec² at the zenith — 21.9 is a natural sky
- 6.1Faintest starthe faintest magnitude the naked eye can see here
- 115 kmNearest big townover 50,000 people, in a straight line
- 379 mAltitudeabove the sea: less air and haze above you
- 100%Open skyof the half-sphere the relief leaves visible
Where the light comes from
The brightest glow on the horizon comes from Riyadh, 146 km to the north-east.
Each wedge is how much artificial light arrives from that direction (10° slices).
An estimate of the usual sky with no Moon and no clouds, from NASA's night-lights map and a light-propagation model (about ±0.3 mag). A given night depends on the Moon, the clouds, dust and humidity.
When to go
Best from August to October and in December.
Hours of truly dark night, hours with the core of the Milky Way up, how often the sky is clear and the coldest night, month by month.
- 10h76%9°Jan
- 10h76%12°Feb
- 9.5h72%16°Mar
- 8.8h62%21°Apr
- 8.0h73%26°May
- 7.5h88%28°Jun
- 7.7h82%30°Jul
- 8.3h81%30°Aug
- 9.2h86%26°Sep
- 10h89%21°Oct
- 10h77%16°Nov
- 11h79%11°Dec
- Dark night (hours)
- Milky Way core up
- Clear sky
- Coldest night
- Best months
The Moon, night by night
A bright Moon washes out the faint stars. The highlighted nights are the dark ones (less than a quarter lit); below, the next new moons.
- 9 Nov2026
- 9 Dec2026
- 7 Jan2027
- 6 Feb2027
- 8 Mar2027
- 6 Apr2027
Night: Sun more than 18° below the horizon. Milky Way: the galactic centre more than 10° up during that night. Clear sky: 100 − NASA cloud amount (2001–2020). Coldest: average minimum brought to this altitude.
What happens in this sky
Meteors, eclipses, auroras.
Meteor showers
The next twelve months. The rate is what a dark sky shows with the radiant at its highest here; the Moon decides the rest.
- Orionidspeak 21 Oct 2026 · up to 20 meteors an hourMoon 71% lit at the peak
- Leonidspeak 17 Nov 2026 · up to 15 meteors an hourMoon 45% lit at the peak
- Geminidspeak 14 Dec 2026 · up to 148 meteors an hourMoon 20% lit at the peak
- Quadrantidspeak 4 Jan 2027 · up to 100 meteors an hourMoon 13% lit at the peak
- Lyridspeak 22 Apr 2027 · up to 18 meteors an hourMoon 98% lit at the peak
- Eta Aquariidspeak 6 May 2027 · up to 45 meteors an hourMoon 0% lit at the peak
- Southern Delta Aquariidspeak 30 Jul 2027 · up to 19 meteors an hourMoon 17% lit at the peak
- Perseidspeak 12 Aug 2027 · up to 83 meteors an hourMoon 77% lit at the peak
Eclipses
Lunar eclipses visible from here, and solar eclipses whose path crosses this country.
- Partial lunar eclipse6 july 2028Moon 28° up at mid-eclipse · 140 min
- Total lunar eclipse31 december 2028Moon 33° up at mid-eclipse · 71 min
- Total lunar eclipse20 december 2029Moon 66° up at mid-eclipse · 53 min
- Partial lunar eclipse15 june 2030Moon 31° up at mid-eclipse · 143 min
- Total solar eclipse2 august 2027the path crosses this country — check the exact line before you go
- Total solar eclipse20 march 2034the path crosses this country — check the exact line before you go
Meteor dates: International Meteor Organization peaks. Lunar eclipses: computed (J. Meeus) and shown only when the Moon is above this horizon. Solar eclipses: Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC (country on the path).
The place
Ad-Dahna Desert.
Desert in Saudi Arabia
Ad-Dahna Desert is a desert in Saudi Arabia, 379 m above the sea.
Its usual sky, with no Moon or clouds, is estimated at 20.89 mag/arcsec² — Bortle 4, rural–suburban transition: the naked eye reaches stars of magnitude 6.1.
The nearest town of over 50,000 people is 115 km away.
The best months are from August to October and in December: long dark nights and clearer skies.
The core of the Milky Way rises up to 37° above the horizon, and is up during the dark hours from March to September.
The horizon is open all round: nothing in the relief rises more than 3°.
Visit and sleep under the stars
- Dawadmi Domestic Airport (DWD)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 139 km in a straight lineCar hire at RUH airport (Riyadh)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the night
A guided night, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
The horizon
360° around you.
The silhouette of the relief up to 30 km away (Copernicus DEM), with the light domes of the towns where they rise. Mountains are drawn taller than they are, to be seen.
Around, in OpenStreetMap
- observatories and planetariums within 30 km
- viewpoints within 5 km
- named peaks within 5 km
- marked trails within 3 km
- shelters and huts within 5 km
- car parks within 3 km
- campsites within 10 km
- places to stay within 10 km
- visitor centres within 5 km
- restaurants and cafés within 5 km
- street lamps mapped within 2 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
Photographs
By day and by night.
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, certification | Wikidata (Q1973934) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sky brightness | NASA Earth Observatory, Black Marble 2016 (Suomi NPP VIIRS) · Darkskyas light model (Walker's law, fitted to 18 measured sites) |
| Night, Moon, Milky Way, stars | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms · HYG v4.4 · Stellarium modern_iau (CC BY-SA 4.0) |
| Horizon and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds and temperature | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| Solar eclipses | Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
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