Marginal VFR at night
I ended up getting off work after sunset last night and got to do a little night cross country on the way home, (I drop skydivers so am able to fly to work once in a while when I can afford the gas) about a 60NM trip over some not so populated areas. Only a couple small towns on the ground along the way and no freeways to follow. Ceilings were around 4000 MSL with moderate and heavy rain. Terrain along the route rises up to about 2000ft. The trip went fine and was a lot of fun but I couldn't help thinking to myself how intimidating this scenario could be for a non instrument rated pilot.
Sure you don't need to have an instrument rating to fly at night but in my opinion when you're flying at night without a full moon, weather you are in the clouds or not, you are flying on instruments. My advice to anyone out there who does not have an instrument rating is make sure you are very confident in your ability to navigate with the instruments and communicating with ATC.
Another important note about flying at night... the only reason I know the ceilings were at 4000ft is because the AWOS told me, you usually can't see where the clouds are at night which means it would be very easy to inadvertently climb into them. Moral of the story is BE EXTRA VIGILANT during night VFR. I'm sure you all already know all this but a quick review never hurts.