I am surprised the meek and modest BIK has not piped up here yet.
There was a thread in which he posted all the relevant regs a while ago to show that flight out of cloud with no horizon etc can be categorised as IMC. However I have just done a search, found the thread, but BIK has deleted his posts!
Reference 1. CAR 1988. Definitions.
instrument flight time means flight time during which a person is flying an aircraft solely by reference to instruments and without external reference points.
There was an AIP supplement (the blue ones) about filling in logbooks saying that clear nights with no horizon was not loggable as IMC, but as pointed out, they do not override the CARs. That AIP supp does not exist any more.
I flew last night in the desert. Clear night, no moon at all (a thin slither rose about 0400. For much of the time there was no discernable horizon at any stage at all - even with all the lights off (which I tried briefly).
I might be clear of cloud but I was poling the a/c with sole reference to instruments and without external reference points.
CS
Capt Claret, was that you into perth last night (21/11)? Just heard you changing off freq as txferred onto it.