For faint extended objects, usually yes. A bright sky raises the background along with the object, so a larger aperture collects more of both. Point sources like stars and double stars are far less affected, and planets barely at all.
This is the question that decides where money should go, and the answer depends entirely on what you want to look at.
What light pollution does
It raises the brightness of the sky background. A faint galaxy is only visible as a contrast against that background, so when the background rises the contrast falls. A larger telescope collects more of the object and more of the sky in the same proportion, which is why the gain is smaller than the arithmetic suggests.
Where aperture wins anyway
Point sources. A star is concentrated into a tiny area, so more aperture makes it brighter against a background that stays the same per unit area. Double stars, star clusters and planetary nebulae all benefit.
Where neither matters much
The Moon and the planets. They are bright, the sky background is irrelevant beside them, and a city balcony is as good a place as any.
The practical conclusion
If your list is galaxies and large nebulae, a night out of town does more than an upgrade. If your list is planets and doubles, stay home and spend the money on optics.
The questions that keep arriving
What about the Moon and planets?
Light pollution barely affects them. They are bright enough that the background hardly matters, which is why a city balcony is a perfectly good place for planetary observing and a poor one for galaxies.
How dark does it need to be?
Any reduction helps, and the gain is steepest at the start: moving from a lit street to a shaded garden, or from a town to the countryside twenty minutes away, changes more than the last step to a genuinely dark site does.
Last reviewed 17 September 2026