Pickett CCC Memorial State Park and Pogue Creek Canyon State Natural Area International Dark Sky Park

Pickett-Pogue International Dark Sky Park covers 1,618 hectares in the upper Cumberland Mountains of northern Tennessee. It joins Pickett CCC Memorial State Park and Pogue Creek Canyon State Natural Area, managed by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the Tennessee Division of Forestry. On May 12, 2015, the International Dark-Sky Association (now DarkSky International) named it a Silver Tier International Dark Sky Park. Tennessee State Parks calls it the first state park in the Southeast with the designation. DarkSky notes that it sits in a relatively dark part of the eastern United States where dark places are disappearing fast.

To qualify, the park worked with local communities and governments and refitted its facilities with night sky friendly lighting. The place to set up is the astronomy field at the Pogue Creek Canyon State Natural Area parking lot on Highway 154. The field sits above the gravel lot, has electricity and is open to the public for stargazing all year. Pickett has campsites, cabins and a group camp for astronomy clubs. With the Barnard-Seyfert Astronomical Society and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the park runs an annual star party, a New Year's Eve hike and regular dark sky programs in the summer season. DarkSky's photo of the park shows stars over its natural bridge.

Our light pollution estimate is Bortle 4 at the coordinates in our data. The Milky Way core rises to about 25 degrees above the southern horizon at this latitude, and our data shows June, May and July with the most core hours.