What does darkness refer to? Light in regards to player-character visibility.
Why am I asking this? I want optimal conditions for sneaking, so I want to know what time of day I should be performing covert ops.

If you have a suggestion on how to make this question less ambiguous, please comment.

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3 Answers

It depends where you are. In the East, such as Riften, it can be dark until 10:00 am, but in the far west places like Rorikstead and Helgen, dawn comes at around 4:00 am, and in the middle, like Whitrun and Dawnstar, morning comes around 8:00 am. If you want to sneak around anywhere, though, 8:00 pm-8:00 am are usually fine.

I don't have any hard evidence to back this, but I think that any time the sun isn't up you're in the dark. That said, you really still have to avoid light sources (fires, lanterns, etc). There's also no telling (for me anyway) if the moons cast any light. So to be safe (and roleplaying?) do your sneakiest sneaks during the new moon stages. ;)

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i have actually figured it out,it depends on the day 9-12 would usually be the darkness but its doesn't really affect how detectable you are.

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